Country visits
As part of the project questionnaire, countries provided examples of practice. Visits were undertaken in spring 2013 to five selected countries, to look at provision relating to particular project themes. The following reports are available on the project visits from:
- Essunga, Sweden - to explore ways to strengthen the capacity of mainstream schools
- Vienna, Austria - to look at a collaborative approach to quality management
- Flensburg, Germany - to investigate collaboration and networking to support the needs of learners with disabilities (also available in German)
- Ljubljana, Slovenia - to look at developing the role of special schools to provide a resource to support mainstream
- Valetta, Malta - to study in-class support and the roles of different personnel in schools/communities.
Thematic seminars
Following successful visits to the above examples, the five countries involved all hosted a seminar in autumn 2013. Project participants had the opportunity to explore the key project themes and look at relevant factors underpinning policy and practice to support learners with disabilities in mainstream settings. The seminars also considered issues around the management of change and implementation of project findings.
Information from the seminars contributed to the final project summary report and to the development of a practical tool to support countries to manage change and move towards more inclusive provision.
The key papers and presentations below are working documents drafted for the five seminars.
1. Synthesis paper
This paper provides an overview of information provided by participating countries on key issues relating to the organisation of provision for learners with disabilities in mainstream settings. The paper also sets out some of the key questions that were used as a basis for group discussions at each seminar.
2. Information collection paper
This paper summarises information gathered from countries about monitoring and evaluation and outlines some initial ideas about the type of information that might be collected to review the quality of support provided for learners with disabilities. These issues were also discussed during the seminars.
3. Project Overview
This presentation includes an overview of the project and country information.
4. Summary of visit findings
This presentation gives a summary of common factors that were identified during visits to the selected examples of successful, inclusive practice.
5. A summary of the discussions
The materials from each country seminar include presentations about the country policy and practice and information about the schools visited: