What is the most effective way to achieve genuine inclusion?

Funding to support the delivery of adjustments is provided through the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with a Disability. The NCCD model, as it is commonly known, is now more than a decade old and promotes outdated models of inclusive pedagogy. Advances in research and practice over the past decade have demonstrated significant benefits for both students and teachers from increasing the accessibility of curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment. When implemented universally as the foundation level of practice in an Integrated Multi-Tiered Systems of Support model, Accessible Assessment and Pedagogies remove common barriers from the outset, reducing the overall volume of adjustments required, better enabling teachers to improve the relevance and effectiveness of adjustments for the smaller group of students that still need them. Together, accessibility and relevant adjustments (if required) help prevent student frustration and improve comprehension, engagement, and achievement, while reducing workload and stress for teachers. In this keynote address, I will outline the steps necessary for effective inclusive education with emphasis on the three core moves: Applying universal principles, Identifying barriers, and Designing and Implementing Adjustments. My address will be followed by two workshops in which Dr Haley Tancredi and I will lead a hands-on deep dive into two of the core practices that underpin these three steps: accessible assessment design and accessible student consultation.

Professor Linda Graham is Director of The QUT Centre for Inclusive Education at Queensland University of Technology. She leads several externally funded research projects and has published more than 100 books, chapters, and journal articles, including the best-selling Inclusive Education for the 21st Century, affectionately known in schools as “The Pink Book”. Over the last decade, Linda has led a major program of research aimed at improving student experiences and outcomes by increasing the accessibility of assessment and pedagogy. This work is now detailed in a new book, Accessible Assessment and Pedagogies: Improving student outcomes through inclusive practice. Linda is now leading an even larger project with the aim of supporting schools to implement accessible assessment and pedagogies, at scale.