British Inclusive Education

Inclusive education is an international education thought emerging in the 1990s. With the rising thoughts of educational equality, democratization and Education for All, and also with the pursuit of educational equality and democratization in every country, the conception of inclusive education was accepted all over the world and many countries begin to put it into practice.Inclusion is the process of increasing participation and decreasing exclusion from mainstream social settings. Inclusive education means that education should meet all the children's need, regardless of the states of health, intelligence, society, emotion, language, and etc. Inclusive education tries to increase students' participation and decrease their being excluded, and then makes every child receive optimum education for himself.Nowadays, U.K. is one of the countries that inclusive education is developing much faster in the world. To improve performance and accelerate inclusion has become two main principles and targets of education development in U.K.. The drive from international society and the problems special education faces urge British government and the populace to put inclusive education into practice firmly.In U.K., the practice of inclusive education is a gradual process. We can clearly dialyze the historical process from a series of important bills: Warnock Report, the 1981 Education Act, the 1988 Education Reform Act and "the Code of Practice", and etc.So far, British government has fundamentally established a set of practical frameworks of inclusive education and made some specific projects. They are drived by Government and ensured to take effect by means of legislation. Special schools were closed gradually, diverse placement policies were done to replace disabled children from special schools into mainstream schools. Funds from multi-channels were supplied to replace and support disabled children. Curriculum plans were carried out flexibly and teaching methods were reformed, children with special educational need were provided with curriculum support, learning support assistant, and SENCO who coordinate all school polices of special educational need. Personnel of inclusive education were trained. Children's parents were admitted to attend it actively.In China, the experiment of inclusive education began to be performed at the end of 1980s. There are experimental schools of inclusive education, teaching patterns and methods of training teachers, much achievement gained, however, many problems remained. Some measures and experiences from the inclusive education practice in U.K. will enlighten and benefit us in the experiment of inclusive education.