Free Schools And Inclusion
Free schools, which are apparently going to give parents power over their children’s education, are back in the news this week. They could, apparently, improve education for all children.
This got me thinking. I’ve written before about the struggles that my friends and I and our parents faced when we were trying to get into mainstream schools. Part of me wishes that our parents could have had the choice to set up free schools to teach us at. Who knows, our lives might have been much easier if they had been able to do something like this.
So, I wonder if any parents of DisAbled children today who want inclusion will set up a free school, with a mainstream curriculum, to teach their children at if their local mainstream school rejects them? What are your thoughts on this, readers? Are you the parent of a DisAbled child of school age? Have you had a struggle to get them included, and has the thought of starting up a free school crossed your mind? Are you, like me, a DisAbled adult who wishes this choice had been available to your parents? Parents of DisAbled adults- would you, given the choice, have set up a free school to teach your child at? Are you a DisAbled child in a special school today who wants to be at mainstream school, and would you like to be at a ‘free’ mainstream school?
Finally, do you think a free school started by parents of non-disabled children would be any more or less likely to include DisAbled children than a state mainstream school, or would this make no difference?
Please leave your thoughts in the comments below, or, if you prefer, come over to Facebook and ‘like’ this blog’s brand new page, where this is the first topic of discussion.
Same Difference 