ABSTRACT
The historical trend in educational policy designed to address the education of young people with disabilities and difficulties has been that of segregation, integration and inclusion. The Pre-Warnock (1974) period of provision for children deemed to fall outside the normal range of ability, attainment or behaviour was characterised by psychometric assessment, normative referencing, categorisation, labelling and developments in 'specialist' teaching. The recommended placement for such children was in special schools or units, which resulted, for many, in their exclusion from the cultures, curriculum and community of local mainstream school provision. Following the Warnock Report (DES 1978) and the 1981 Education Act 'integration' took over as the dominant model for educational placement. This period was influenced by a commitment to children with SEN to be educated in mainstream settings, albeit with certain provisos. The contribution of social, institutional and curricular factors to learning difficulties was emphasised with the consequent developments of differentiation and whole-school policies for SEN. The realisation that some individuals needed 'extra or different' resourced provision within the context of a National Curriculum's integrated settings prompted the introduction of the Code of Practice in 1994. This code attempted to balance wholeschool and individual specialist provision by introducing a five-stage model of identification and assessment with provision being enhanced by Individual Education Plans (IEPs) at Stage 2 and beyond. Concern about educational outcomes, costs, societal inequalities, moral imperatives and political preferences prompted the adoption of inclusion as the educational ideology for the approaching new millennium.
