NovWriMo Plus Forum

Over here, Inclusion and Diversity and Equality (note all the capitals) are qualities our education system is supposed to be striving to attain but, from that, you can tell it's being presented as something difficult.
Sixteen years ago, when I was pregnant with my oldest child, I studied level 1 Childminding and our teacher was brilliant and so was her use of resources. I still remember one of the videos she showed us about how it must feel to a child when we spoilsport adults won't let him or her play with the lovely, shiny broken bottle. She challenged all our attitudes about fitting in with other parents' prejudices about who and what their children should play with (obviously, not the broken glass). It was more to do with providing culturally diverse books and dressing up clothes and not differentiating between "boys" and "girls" toys - that kind of thing.
Last year I studied website creation and I was struck by the attitudes of some student forum contributers who seemed to feel it was a step too far that they should make their websites accessible for people with visual impairments.
When I went to school, anyone with any kind of recognised disability was funnelled off to a special school and anyone else who couldn't learn was considered a dunce and more-or-less forgotten about. Even that was an improvement on the generation before, where I think many children just didn't get an education at all. Now, we want to include all our children (if possible) in general education and to provide enough support to enable everybody to learn but we don't all seem able to get our heads round the idea of treating everyone with respect as individual human beings rather than as a conglomorate of children with a few sticking out at the edges (the ones who are bored because the work's too easy and the ones who are struggling because their learning styles, abilities or other barriers to learning are not being recognised.). Our funding system is a mess and one school governor told me privately that the learning support goes to the children whose parents agitate the most. If that was the case, then both my children should have had most of the budget because, while they were at junior school, I was forever in the staff room, trying to sort out one thing or another. Even now, I average an email a week for my oldest and one a month for my youngest.
As for the reward system, my oldest always wanted a certificate for 100% attendance but never got one because he had a lot of time off with illness and medical appointments. His best friend has diabetes so there was no point him even thinking of yearning for an attendance certificate. My youngest was in line for one this year but he had to have one day off sick. He did get a certificate for the first term, two years running, and he received a book token last year and now he's trying hard with his homework because I said I'd pay him a penny a word if he tried his best. It's only a matter of time before my older son finds out so I think I'd better start saving now.
Normally, I wouldn't blame our state schools, and there are so many teachers at this secondary school, all going above and beyond the call of duty for my children but there does seem to generally be too much top-level emphasis on targets and league tables and I don't think most parents care about those things as much as we're supposed to because most of us want our kids to be happy and to go to the same schools as their friends.
Got to go. I bet you're glad. I didn't mean to write so much. Oops.