Two additional documents were developed – a questionnaire and a review tool – to provide information to be used as the basis for discussion with school staff, and to guide judgements in the synthesis sheet. Completed questionnaires were obtained for 147 schools and the review tool was completed for 141 schools.
A questionnaire was sent out before the review to gather facts and attitude information from schools. It covered similar information to previous years’ questionnaires. The earlier responses were used to develop pre-coded response categories for most questions. The questionnaire also provided an opportunity for schools to express their views and was used for planning the review.
The questionnaire was in three sections:
A review tool was developed for reviewers and schools to complete together to provide a means of quickly and systematically recording some descriptive information about various aspects of inclusion:
Having a complete set of information meant relationships among different aspects of inclusion could be explored in a systematic and reliable way.
The systematic collection of data in the questionnaire and review tool meant responses could be compared with evaluative ratings to explore relationships. For example:
The table below shows that the schools responding were broadly representative of schools nationally, except that the resulting sample had proportionately fewer full primary, composite, rural, small and schools.1
Number of schools included (152) |
Percentage |
National percentage (2306) |
|
School type | |||
Full primary Contributing Intermediate, Year 7-10 Composite (Year 1-15, Year 1-10) Secondary (Year 7-15) Secondary (Year 9-15; 11-15) |
60 59 10 2 2 20 |
38 38 6 1 1 13 |
44 33 5 4 4 10 |
Location of school | |||
Main urban Secondary urban Minor urban Rural |
92 15 21 24 |
60 10 14 16 |
52 7 12 29 |
Size of school | |||
Very small Small Medium Large Very large |
3 18 75 38 22 |
2 12 48 24 14 |
8 22 39 20 10 |
Decile | |||
Low decile (deciles 1-3) Medium decile (deciles 4-7) High decile (deciles 8-10) |
44 66 46 |
28 42 29 |
29 41 30 |
ERO’s judgement of inclusive practices was primarily based on how schools provided for the students currently enrolled. If there were no students with high needs at the time of the review, the judgement was based on the school’s reported previous experience with high needs students, supported by documentation of school values, systems, and procedures.