Inclusion policy Mora gymnasium

Mora gymnasium- Mission Statement

The upper secondary school administration in Mora municipality and its activities, Mora gymnasium, Mora vuxenutbildning, Mora Anpassad gymnasieskola, Mora Yrkeshögskola and Mora Högskolecentrum, shall be characterized by high quality with the student in center. The upper secondary school administration is a successful administration where our aim is that every student who starts an education should receive the help and knowledge that the student needs to develop towards their full potential in their studies, their future job and as a world citizen. Our aim is for students to learn for life and understand the value of living in a global society. Our vision is for each student to develop towards their full potential and our daily work is characterized by the four bywords: Safety, respect, dedication and quality. We work together in a positive spirit so that everyone will feel joy, respect, participation but also responsibility in the work.

In our day-to-day work, everyone's equal value and respect for each other should be one of our guiding principles, and the school should be a safe environment.

Leadership should be health-promoting, meaningful, communicative and clear.

Inclusive education -History and Theory

During the 1950s and 1960s, concepts such as integration and mainstreaming were launched. These concepts can be seen as the starting point for how pupils in need of special support would be educated by involving them in the regular school environment. Nilholm (2009) writes that a dissatisfaction arose with how the concept of integration developed through the fact that many students were placed in environments that had been adapted to their individual needs to very limited extent. Many children were placed in regular classes. Integration as a learning concept also has inherent problem because the term has long been used to try to correct segregation in the European societies, writes Nilholm (2006). The problem with the meaning of the concept of integration and the dissatisfaction with the concepts of integration and mainstreaming meant that the concept of inclusion was launched. With the Salamanca Declaration (1994), one can say that the concept of inclusion got its international breakthrough. The declaration is skeptical of all kinds of special solutions for students and advocates inclusive education (Nilholm 2006 & 2009).

In Sweden, it is possible to see a change in the role of special education in the national curriculum of 1980 (Lgr 1980), which notes that problems can arise due to deficiencies in the educational environment and not because of the individual student´s capacities. The concept of inclusion, according to Nilholm (2009), has not made any major imprints in the policy documents, but can be said to have been assimilated into a discourse of a school for everyone. Above all, researchers and professionals in the special education field have been interested in the concept of inclusion. Furthermore, Nilholm (2009) writes that the assimilation in the discourse around a school for everyone, in which inclusion has been seen as everyone's right to participate in the classroom, has made it seem a criticism of traditional special education. The idea of ​​the concept of inclusion is about much more than just the physical placement of children, it is about how the whole teaching situation must be changed so that it is adapted to all the pupils' different conditions (Nilholm, 2006).

Nilholm (2009) defines the concept as follows:

"The whole is changing from being a normalization practice for deviant students to starting from what one sometimes describes as students' natural inequality" (Nilholm, 2009, p. 90).

The concept of inclusion implies that the (special) pedagogical competence is adapted to different children's needs so that everyone feels that they participate in the classroom. In other words, you take the parts (students) and put together the whole (class) and not the other way around, which was the case with integration where you started from the whole (the class) and assimilated the parts (the students) (Nilholm, 2006).

Within the international research field, there are several studies and reports within inclusion as subject area. Skidmore (2004) has conducted a study in two English schools, Downland and Sealey Cove, both of which work towards an inclusive environment for students aged 13-18. The study has been done in two parts, where the first focus was the organization around how children in need of special support get help and also the language that the professionals use when talking about the students. The result of the study was that it was extremely important how the collaboration worked between the colleagues at the school. At Downland, the colleagues had different opinions and it was reflected in the fact that the teaching to some extent became insufficient, while the college at Sealey Cove was much more interrelated around the curriculum and there it developed an inspiring and collaborative environment for the students. Skidmore (2004) comes to the conclusion that it is important to work with the discourse on inclusion for the development of the individual teachers' profession.

Allan (2003) is the editor of a book published after an international symposium on inclusion 2001 at the University of Stirling in Scotland, the book belongs to the series Inclusive Education: Cross Cultural perspectives. The interaction between inclusion and identity of both the individual and the group is taken into account. This work resulted in 12 chapters written by researchers in special education on inclusion who work in the US, Norway, Iceland, Australia and the UK. Many of the authors considered that the democratic link to inclusion for all pupils was important for both their path to the adult world but also to create their own identities. For identity affirmation, several authors could see that the individuals' identity was threatened as long as pupils in need of special support were seen as a single homogeneous group in which their diagnosis governed their identity.

Armstrong (2003) has studied inclusion in a socio-political and cultural context. The main purpose was to study how categorization of people who are regarded as different is enacted and how categorizations are created through the school and the professionals who work there. Because the languages ​​and the social context are different in the two countries involved Great Britain and France, the study did not aim to be a comparative study, but instead a study to find common denominators in the individual countries' individual contexts. Armstrong's (2003) conclusion is that democracy, social justice and equality must be keywords in the school world and that every individual´s relationships in the school must be permeated by equal and inclusive treatment. The physical environment in the school, in which students in need of special support were excluded from the others, proved to be a building block in social exclusion that also followed them outside the school. Henriksson (2009) and Allan (2003) mean that by being part of a group and by feeling aware of belonging to the group, we identify ourselves.

At the World Conference on the Teaching of Students in Need of Special Support in1994 in Salamanca, Spain, the following were declared; "Students with a need for special support must have access to regular schools that will provide them with a pedagogy that puts the child in center and support their needs” and “ordinary schools with this integration focus is the most effective way to combat discriminatory attitudes, to create a welcoming local environment, to build an integrated society and to achieve a school education for everyone ” (Swedish UNESCO Council, 2006: 2, p. 11).

The thoughts that illuminate in Lpf (SKOLFS 2011: 144) are the concept of inclusion where inclusion should be seen as that the school as a whole "must be organized from the fact that children are different" (Nilholm, 2006, p. 14). Göransson (1999) advocates that as a teacher one should evaluate his/her teaching and set goals for each student, preferably after ecological functional assessments where the pupil and the family, together with the teacher, can evaluate the teaching and set new goals by defining the environments that are considered important to the pupil. The progress must be evaluated and together, new goals must be set for how the education should look like by looking at what a reasonable level of development would mean for the pupil in question. Inclusive education, is an umbrella term, and what it means will differ from one context to another. At the heart of the principle is that every student has fair and equal opportunities to fully participate as an IB learner and feels they fully belong in the learning environment (IB, 2023, p.1).

Following the Access and Inclusion policy (2022) of the IBO the inclusive access arrangements provided for a student must:

• be carefully individualized, evaluated and monitored
• be applied throughout the course of study
• reflect the optimal support that the student requires
• be based on current, not past, requirements
• be drawn from teacher observations in the classroom
• be considered in line with the eligibility criteria for inclusive access arrangements in this policy
• be strictly based on individual requirements (and not provided as a standard to all students with learning support requirements in the school/classroom) (IB, 2022, p. 10).

Purpose with Inclusion policy

Students who enter Mora gymnasium have a wide range of abilities, backgrounds, interests and come from different cultures. Inclusive access arrangements refer to any student who shows a need for extra support or for challenge beyond the general curriculum. Our aim is that every student who starts at Mora gymnasium will reach his or her full potential. We aim to help students develop appropriate levels of independence, responsibility and skills in their academic, emotional and social lives so that they may have full and equal access to all parts of life in the present as well as in the future. Our teaching approach should be inclusive. Access arrangements for a student must be based on the principle of optimal support, which means that they must be accurately planned to remove or reduce barriers during teaching, learning and assessment. They must neither be more nor less than what the student requires (IB, 2022, p. 10).

Every student;

• should have equal access to the IB curriculum and get the help that they need to reach their full academic potential. The curriculum should enable all students to participate fully and effectively in every lesson.For requirements for entering the IBDP at Mora gymnasium see Admission policy.
• and staff are encouraged to embody an inclusive atmosphere at Mora gymnasium in order to develop the attributes in the IB Learner Profile Länk till annan webbplats, öppnas i nytt fönster..
• should have the possibility to experience success in their learning and learn how to value the contribution from his/her classmates.

Mora gymnasium – Approaches to Inclusion

Students in need of inclusive access arrangements are identified by assessment strategies (both formative and summative, see Assessment policy as well as Admission policy):

• During the pre-IB year, teachers in Swedish (screen the students for learning disabilities), English (diagnose receptive and productive skills) and Mathematics (diagnose prior knowledge) will assess every student during the first month. See Admission policy. Our special pedagog receives the result and every student is to be discussed on a collaborative staff meeting. Our teaching approach is that “every teacher is a teacher of every student” and our teaching should be student centered in its approach.
• High quality teaching, differentiated for individual students, is the first step to responding to students who indicate inclusive needs. Learning is considered from a strength-based perspective. We aim to work with Universal Design for Learning in the classroom (ULR). For teaching approaches see IB (2007), IB (2016a), IB (2016b) and https://udlguidelines.cast.org Länk till annan webbplats..
• Every student will have an iPad and Mora gymnasium has several assistive technologies in their iPad such as Inläsningstjänst, Legimus, Immerse reader and Tortalk to help students in need of inclusive access arrangements in their learning processes.
• When it is determined that a student would benefit from additional support outside of the classroom, pull out services will be provided to meet academic, social or behavioral needs. Additionally, paraprofessionals may provide further support to some students. Mora gymnasium has a wide range of support professionals; special pedagogs, health care team (nurses, curator, doctor, psychologist) and support teachers in mathematics, English and structure.NOTE that to be qualified for extra teaching hours at “Studion” a student MUST attend his/her classes.
• An individual education plan (IEP) will be written with the access needs of the student. Parents, student, guidance counsellor, class teacher, IBDP and special pedagog should all take part of and agree on the construction of the IEP. At Mora gymnasium, we want our students´ parents to know that they can contribute to the shared view of the student’s needs, can play an active and valued role in their child’s education.Inclusion is achieved through a culture of collaboration, mutual respect, support and problem solving. “Dynamic learning communities” refers to the whole school community, and any work on developing inclusion should not forget the voices of all learners, their parents and caregivers, support staff and non-teaching staff (IB, 2015, p. 1).
• The IEP is to be evaluated regularly within a period of 6-8 weeks. A student´s access requirements may change over the course of their study. Their challenge or condition may worsen (such as a medical condition) or improve (such as mental health difficulties), which would alter their access requirements (IB, 2022, p. 10). When students change schools or move from one IB program to another, all cumulative folders will be transferred when requested.
• Mora gymnasium recognizes a holistic approach to the students´ needs. Students´ progress and learning are dependent on many different objectives for example attendance, health and welfare (objectives that may be considered as adverse circumstances but also as access and inclusion needs that can be of both unforeseen and long-term character, see IB, 2019b) Attendance is of utter importance to be able to get the teaching hours a student needs to pass the May exams in DP2. This can also affect CSN, Inackorderingstillägg as well as moving up to DP2 (see Admission policy, Student Attendance - policy, routines and documentation )
• Classroom support for all students in need of inclusive access arrangements and abilities may include curriculum modification, enrichment activities, classroom accommodations, small group instruction, or one-on-one support, depending on what is agreed upon in the IEP.
• Support lessons in mathematics, Swedish, English and other subjects are held during Wednesday afternoons for any student who want extra support or to do their homework together with a subject teacher. See posters outside classroom E5 and IBDP staffroom for time and place.
• Support mechanisms for students needing special arrangements are outlined in the IB publications Access and inclusion policy (IB, 2022). Inclusive access arrangements are to be addressed in the classroom as well as on any IB internal and external assessment.
• Teaching staff at the IBDP will have monthly meetings with staff from the school´s health care, IBDP coordinator and vice principal in which students in need of inclusive arrangements are to be discussed (IB, 2019a).
• Teachers should collaborate and exchange experiences in teaching methods and approaches.
• The IBO works with Universal Design of Assessment when creating internal and external assessment tasks. The concept of Universal Design of Assessment is to consider access, inclusion, equality, cultural sensitivities, stereotypes and bias from the starting design of the assessment. This includes the creation of examination tasks and questions, but also goes a step back into the design of the overall assessment model which sets the framework of how comparable assessments are created for every session. By creating more inclusive, and indeed less construct irrelevant, assessments at the start we can minimize the challenges faced in meeting the needs of individual candidates (IB, 2019c, p 155).

May exams and inclusive access arrangements

For a student to be able to get inclusive access arrangements during May exams the following supporting documents must be sent to the IBO (IBIS system).

3.5 Two forms of supporting documentation are required when submitting a request for access arrangements for IB authorization.

1. An official report.
   This includes:
   • a psychological/medical report
   • evidence from a language test for additional language learners.
2. Educational evidence from the school.

3.6 Access arrangements are based on a student’s current access requirements. The supporting evidence must therefore justify that access arrangements are necessary for the current assessment.

3.7 All psychological/medical reports must be undertaken within three years of the intended examination that the request relates to and dated accordingly. However, the IB can be flexible with the date of medical reports for students with permanent sensory and/or physical challenges.

3.8 The language test for additional language learners must be conducted no earlier than one year before an IB assessment and the report must be dated accordingly (IB, 2022, p.16).

• Mora gymnasium is responsible for requesting authorization for students in need of inclusive access arrangements through IBIS. Access arrangement requests must be submitted to the IB Coordinator before October 15 and to the IBO six months before the exam (November 15) for May exam sessions. All requests must be authorized by the IBO (IB, 2022, see 3.1-3.20). See Assessment policy.
• Access arrangements may include modifications to exam papers, extensions to deadlines, assistance to practical work, additional time, information and communication technology, scribe and transcription, or readers.Depending on which inclusive access arrangement that is needed there are both arrangements that need authorization and those that do not require authorization (IB, 2025, C.6-C.7).
• Note the difference between a student in inclusive arrangements (circumstances that occurs three months before the written examination) and a student that has adverse circumstances (circumstances that occur within three months of the written examination). All access arrangements requests (inclusive and adverse) must go through the IBO for authorization together with supporting documentation (IB, 2021). Adverse or unforeseen circumstances are those that are beyond the control of the candidate and which might have a negative impact on his or her performance. This includes temporary illness or injury, severe stress, exceptionally difficult family circumstances, bereavement, or events that may threaten the health or safety of a candidate (IB, 2019c, p .155).

Revision

The Inclusion policy is to be updated yearly in September-November and published on moragymnasium.se. The IBDP coordinator is in charge of the revision and the policy is to be communicated to the support teaching staff, student health care team and the IBDP teaching staff. The IBDP teaching staff will work with the policy in January and August.

Date of the latest revision: November 6, 2025

References
Allan, Julie, 2003. Inclusive Education:Cross cultural perspectives . Inclusion, Participation and Democracy: What is the purpose? The Netherlands. Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Armstrong, Felicity, 2003. Inclusive Education:Cross cultural perspectives. Spaced Out: Policy, Difference and the Challenge of Inclusive Education. The Netherlands. Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Danielsson, Lennart & Liljeroth, Ingrid, 1996. Vägval och växande. Stockholm. Liber.

Göransson, Kerstin, 1999. "Jag vill förstå" : om eleven, kunskapen och lärandet. Stockholm. ala ; Statens institut för handikappfrågor i skolan (SIH).

IB, 2007. Meeting Student Learning Diversity in the Classroom. Cardiff, UK. International Baccalaureate Organization.

IB, 2015 (updated 2019). The IB guide to inclusive education: a resource for school development. Cardiff, UK.

IB, 2016a. Learning diversity and inclusion in the IB programmes. Removing barriers to Learning. Cardiff, UK. International Baccalaureate Organization.

IB, 2016b. Using Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in the IB classroom. International Baccalaureate Organization.

IB, 2019a. Inclusive access arrangements: Decision Pathway. International Baccalaureate Organization.

IB, 2019b. Supporting your candidate: Adverse circumstances or access and inclusion? International Baccalaureate Organization.

IB, 2019c (updated 2022). Assessment principles and practices—Quality assessments in a digital age. Cardiff, UK. International Baccalaureate.

IB, 2021 (updated 2024). Adverse circumstances policy. Geneve, Switzerland.

IB, 2022. Access and inclusion policy. Cardiff, UK. International Baccalaureate Organization.

IB, 2023. Developing and aligning a school inclusion policy with the Programme standards and practices. Cardiff, UK.

IB, 2025. Diploma programme Assessment procedures 2026. Cardiff, UK. International Baccalaureate.

IBO.org. Learner profile; (https://www.ibo.org/contentassets/fd82f70643ef4086b7d3f292cc214962/learner-profile-en.pdf Länk till annan webbplats.)

Mora gymnasium. Mission statement. (Ledningsdeklaration) https://www.moragymnasium.se

Nilholm, Claes, 2006. Inkludering av elever ”I behov av särskilt stöd” –vad betyder det och vad vet vi? Myndigheten för skolutveckling. Forskning i fokus nr 28.

Nilholm, Claes, 2009. Perspektiv på specialpedagogik. Lund. Studentlitteratur.

Skidmore, David, 2004. Inclusion the dynamic of school development. Maidenhead. Open University Press.

SKOLFS 2011:144 (Skolverkets författningssamling).

Svenska Unescorådets skriftserie 2006:2. Salamancadeklarationen och Salamanca +10. Stockholm: Svenska Unescorådet.

UDL. https://udlguidelines.cast.org Länk till annan webbplats.