A school’s universal offer should endeavour to meet the needs of all children and young people.

Schools should consider the guidance below to ensure they create a school environment and culture which is inclusive and where more local children have their needs met through universal inclusive provision.

Guidance on inclusive policy and leadership
  • Ensure that leaders promote a culture of inclusion.
  • Ensure that no whole school approaches/policies (such as attendance, assessment, behaviour policies) adversely impact disabled children and young people. For advice and guidance please view Equality Act in relation to Schools.
  • Have a good understanding of local needs and take an anticipatory approach to planning and development, ensuring that the school environment and workforce is well equipped to meet expected needs.
  • Use active provision management to strategically plan provision and training across the school in response to changing needs. Identify any areas of practice that are a priority for whole school development using self-evaluation. Please view a range of Whole School SEND review guidance material.
  • Ensure that all teachers recognise that ‘all teachers are teachers of SEND’ and maintain full responsibility for the progress of all children and young people including those with SEND in their class.
  • Implement a robust monitoring schedule to ensure that high quality teaching that is adapted and personalised is in place in all classrooms to meet the individual needs of the majority of children and young people. 
  • Take creative and evidence based approaches to providing enhanced support to groups of children who are disadvantaged, for example drawing on evidence of effective use of Pupil Premium funding to improve attainment Using pupil premium | EEF.
Guidance on inclusive teaching, learning and curriculum design
  • Aim for the curriculum and teaching approaches to be inclusive by design, taking into account the varying needs and identities of learners. 
  • Make your curriculum and resources inclusive and representative, e.g. teach and offer books that include disabled characters and those written by authors with disabilities or neurodivergence.
  • Ensure there is a culture of high expectations for all learners, alongside a focus on adaptive teaching and reasonable adjustments, in accordance with the Teachers’ Standards (no.5 DfE, 2011)
  • Consider exam boards that use accessible and appropriate language, clear and consistent layout and allow for reasonable adjustments.
  • Ensure that processes for access arrangements are in place.
  • Use positive and inclusive language/terminology and challenge negative use of disability and neurodivergence-related terms Inclusive language: words to use and avoid when writing about disability.
Guidance on inclusive physical environments
  • Employ reasonable adjustments for any child and young person that require them in order to access the teaching and learning
    • Consider the physical accessibility of their learning environments and make reasonable adjustments where there may be barriers to physical access 
    • Provide auxiliary aids or support where a child or young person’s disability would disadvantage them without access to this and when it is considered ‘reasonable’ (e.g. adaptive keyboards/computer software)
    • Cost will be a factor which contributes to deciding whether or not an adjustment is considered ‘reasonable’, however, many effective and practicable adjustments will require little or no cost or disruption 
Training offers

To support schools with their Universal Offer, please view a range of free and traded whole school and workforce development training offers. 

Further guidance and resources

Resources to support whole school and class based inclusive teaching approaches can be found at the following links:

The School SEND One Page profile is a useful tool to provide an overview of the school’s areas of need which can be shared with teaching and support staff, senior leaders, governors and parent/carers.

Audits & Charter Marks

Schools should also consider supporting their whole school inclusive practice through the use of Wolverhampton audits, Charter Marks, and whole school approaches, for example:

  • Anti-bullying Charter Mark
  • Co-production Charter Mark
  • Sandwell Wellbeing Charter Mark
  • Trauma Informed Attachment Aware Schools (TIASS) project
  • Schools of Santuary
Schools of sanctuary

School of sanctuary is an award to recognise the ethos and culture of welcome, safety and inclusivity that runs through all aspects of the school.

Here you can find more information about the award - cityofsanctuary.org

Please contact claire.sumner@wolverhampton.gov.uk for more information.

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