As the voice of the disabled children's sector, the Council for Disabled Children (CDC) has consistently promoted the inclusion of all disabled children in mainstream services. During the council's existence, the inclusion debate has risen and fallen but it has never gone away.
In 1996, CDC published its first policy on inclusion. Since then, changes in government policy have strengthened parents' entitlement to mainstream school places and removed some of the limiting conditions. But more recently there has been concern among members of the council that national policy on inclusion was coming under fire from several different directions.
With continuing high exclusion levels for pupils with special educational needs (they are more than nine times as likely to be excluded than their peers), it is crucial that awareness of the rights of disabled children and young people is raised. CDC therefore convened a working group from across the spectrum of the council to re-evaluate its inclusion principles.
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