Advocates of different approaches to inclusion are often adamant that there can be only one true form of inclusion – yet advocated forms differ. Ultimately, inclusion is about empowering students to succeed and wrapping them with the support necessary to do so. This article presents the story of Forrester Hill State School where varied approaches to inclusion are blended according to students’ need. Individual goal setting and personalised learning pathways are the norm. Schoolwide pedagogical principles designed to support the learner are actioned and enhanced through wide spread commitment to the collectively developed school vision. Towards the end of 2012, the steadily increasing number of students with special needs at Forrester Hill had been noted at a district level and intervention strategies were in place to encourage parents to access schools closer to home because, due to recommendations made by other parents, many families were moving well outside their catchment areas to enrol children at the school. This approach was only minimally successful and by 2013 numbers were managed by system staff concerned that the high percentage of students with special needs was placing strains on available resources at the school. Despite these measures, by March 2014, the numbers of enrolled students with diagnosed special needs had risen to 86 out of the 630 students enrolled at the school. Within this same time, internal and external achievement data were trending upwards. With these obvious signs of ‘success’ in mind, this phenomenological case study was conducted to discover the essence of inclusion at Forrester Hill. The harmonies of student, staff, parent voices and others are woven together indicating the principles underpinning and sustaining this inclusive school culture – a culture that empowers students to know both how they learn and why they learn, becoming independent learners capable of reaching the high expectations that guide their learning journeys.

This paper details a cross-cultural study of inclusive leadership practices within a basic education context in each of the following countries: Australia, Canada, and Colombia. Each school was selected after district educational leaders identified the school as being inclusive of students with diverse learning needs over an extended period of time. The researchers were particularly interested in the norms and assumptions that were evident within conversations because these were viewed as indicators of the nature of the embedded school culture within each context. School leaders and teachers were interviewed to determine the link between rhetoric and reality, and what inclusion ‘looked like’, ‘felt like’, and ‘sounded like’ at each site, and whether any discernible differences could be attributed to societal culture. A refractive phenomenological case study approach was used to capture the messages within each context and the lived experiences of the participants as they sought to cater for the needs of students. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews with school leaders and teaching staff. Each researcher conducted environmental observations, documenting the impressions and insights gained from the more implicit messages communicated verbally, non-verbally, and experientially from school structures, visuals, and school ground interactions. Themes were collated from the various narratives that were recounted. Both similarities and distinct socio-cultural differences emerged.

Using metaphor to clarify pedagogical understanding and to anchor teacher beliefs and knowledge to meaningful contextualized mental maps can have powerful consequences in schools. Frequent changes in school staff and clientele present schools with the challenge of how to share culturally specific messages quickly and effectively to those new to the school, whether staff, students or parents. Conscious collective use of metaphor within a school’s meaning-making system has been found to be one of the possible answers. This article explores the use of metaphorical visions within schools that have undertaken the Innovative Designs for Enhancing Achievement in Schools (IDEAS) Project and how the linking of metaphor to understandings of schoolwide practices creates cognitive connections capable of facilitating collective understandings. The duality of meaning through metaphor facilitates a cognitive ‘Place’ where new and old understandings can be shared, explored and enriched. A skilfully chosen and well investigated rich metaphor can capture the essence of what a school community believes to be important for student success. This essence can be shared, refined, reflected upon and used to guide and align understandings of practice. The findings show that the strong reinforcement of cognitive links through the use of metaphor may also sustain cultural understandings of pedagogical practice over the long term.

This article provides evidence of a new teacher professionalism whereby teachers, acting as collaborative individuals working together, are the key to effectively meeting the needs of diverse student cohorts. Drawing on data from Australian school contexts and the work of researchers from the Leadership Research International team, new professional images of teachers’ work have emerged as the result of a whole-school improvement process – the Innovative Designs for Enhancing Achievements in Schools (IDEAS) process. Such processes facilitate collective engagement enabling teachers to refine and share individual strengths, as well as build capacity in areas of challenge. This reimaging of teachers is related to the concept of three-dimensional pedagogy where teachers weave personal pedagogical beliefs and authoritative pedagogical frameworks with schoolwide pedagogical principles which are known as the school’s schoolwide pedagogy (SWP). A SWP, clearly aligned with the school’s vision for a preferred future, is derived by staff as a sign of their collective commitment to contextualized, high-yield teaching and learning practices. The focus is on meeting the needs of ‘our students’ in ‘our context’ while being sensitive to systemic direction. Teachers lead the process of developing SWP, working with it, refining it and embedding principles into shared pedagogical action. What emerges is the concept of micro-pedagogical deepening, a process of critiquing and defining contextualised practice. Such practices, led by the new teacher professional, are not only changing the professional image of teachers but also the look, feel and sound of educational workplaces.

“Inclusion!” is the catch cry heard across both educational and community contexts and yet the reality is often less than ideal. The diversity and complexity of student needs within regular classrooms are both an asset and a challenge for schools and classroom teachers. We believe, with Nelson Mandela, that “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” and in order for such a dream to be achieved, it is essential that the pedagogical practices that support the needs of diverse learners are clearly understood and supported by both teachers and school leaders. Most existing research emphasises the need to improve the skill sets of both teacher graduates and practising teachers as a means of enhancing student support. We suggest that it cannot stop at the individual classroom practice level. To maximise student outcomes, inclusive pedagogical practices must be school wide, and well understood, thus resulting in a culture of inclusion becoming embedded in school wide practices and maintained over the long term. Inclusive schoolwide pedagogical (SWP) frameworks and shared practices lie at the heart of the two case study examples used to illustrate the key messages from our research.