Much has been written about special education and about inclusive education, but there have been few attempts to pull these two concepts and approaches together. This book does just that: sets special education within the context of inclusive education. It posits that to include, effectively, all children with special educational needs in schools requires an integration of both concepts, approaches, and techniques. It has never been more timely to publish a book that helps professionals who work with schools, such as psychologists, special education professionals, and counselors, to identify effective practices for children with special needs and provide guidelines for implementing these in inclusive schools.

Can action research make the project of inclusive education easier? This book provides a practical guide to ways in which research can genuinely help dismantle discriminatory and exclusionary practices. It has insider accounts of action research to help challenge readers' assumptions.

Addressing the gender gap in the understanding of autism, this multi-perspective book explores the educational needs of girls on the autism spectrum from early years to secondary school, in both mainstream and special settings. The collection, comprising insights from autistic women and girls and educational and medical professionals makes recommendations for a collaborative and integrated approach that enables girls on the spectrum to reach their full potential. By establishing close collaborations between girls on the spectrum, their parents, teachers and specialist professionals, the field can move forwards in terms of providing understanding and an appropriate educational framework for success.

The debate over whether class size matters for teaching and learning is one of the most enduring, and aggressive, in education research. Teachers often insist that small classes benefit their work. But many experts argue that evidence from research shows class size has little impact on pupil outcomes, so does not matter, and this dominant view has informed policymaking internationally. Here, the lead researchers on the world’s biggest study into class size effects present a counter-argument. Through detailed analysis of the complex relations involved in the classroom they reveal the mechanisms that support teachers’ experience, and conclude that class size matters very much indeed. Drawing on 20 years of systematic classroom observations, surveys of practitioners, detailed case studies and extensive reviews of research, Peter Blatchford and Anthony Russell contend that common ways of researching the impact of class size are limited and sometimes misguided. While class size may have no direct effect on pupil outcomes, it has, they say, significant force through interconnections with classroom processes. In describing these connections, the book opens up the everyday world of the classroom and shows that the influence of class size is everywhere. It impacts on teaching, grouping practices and classroom management, the quality of peer relations, tasks given to pupils, and on the time teachers have for marking, assessments and understanding the strengths and challenges for individual pupils. From their analysis, the authors develop a new social pedagogical model of how class size influences work, and identify policy conclusions and implications for teachers and schools.

This book is intended to be both a practical evidence-based tool and an awareness-raising resource for teachers, teaching assistants, mentors and all adults who work with children and young people who present as 'extremely challenging' in the school context. In every school there are a small number of pupils, less than five percent, who take up more than fifty percent of the staff's time. This book provides school staff with an approach to personalised interventions that enable those children or young people to build life-long resilience skills.

Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Kidscape, the national charity that works to challenge and prevent bullying, this book offers readers an insight into a collection of innovative projects currently running in schools to promote inclusion, tolerance and kindness. From a gay role model to a peer mentor, a dance workshop to a gardening club, an autism ambassador to a travelling Gypsy theatre group, the ideas demonstrate how much we have to teach our children about inclusion, how much kindness matters, and how much of a difference schools can make to children who don't always feel they fit. Joining forces with well-known charities and celebrity supporters including Anthony Horowitz, Jamie Oliver, Michael Sheen and more, these accessible, fun and effective projects are tackling issues such as bullying, homophobia, racism, and truancy, are supporting pupils who may feel isolated and excluded from their peer group, and are helping whole schools become happier, more successful settings. This book will provide inspiration to all educational professionals, parents and volunteers looking for creative and practical ways to help individual children fit in and feel happy in their class.