Inclusion in Education

Learning is a lifelong process, and we are right to expect an equitable and inclusive education for our family members with Down’s syndrome. Where their individual needs are understood and met, so they can achieve their potential.

For many of us, potential is about achieving as much independence as possible, having a social life, with meaningful relationships and eventually finding a vocation and life satisfaction through work and past times. This starts with getting a high quality education and you will decide where your child will thrive best at each stage of their education. Your child or young person will also have views about their preferences and choices.

Everyone’s learning journey will be different and should be tailored to each child and their individual needs and circumstances. This could be in a mainstream school, a special school, an independent school, or home schooling. We would suggest the way to get the best for your child is to make sure you are as well informed as you can be and to know about what kinds of support are available, as well as understanding what can often be a complex and confusing system.

In Buckinghamshire, there are services to support children with Down’s syndrome to access mainstream education, especially during early and primary school years. There are also a number of specialist schools.

We recommend you also visit our EHCP page to find out more about how to make sure your child’s Education health and care plan describes their needs fully and how those needs will be met.

Our trusted partners at Inclusively Down offer some information about inclusion and learning, which may be useful to share with teachers and SENDCos. Inclusively Down support children, young people, their families and carers as well as educational settings in meeting individual learning needs. Inclusively Down charge a professional fee for their services.

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Bucks Council has a specialist teaching service for children with Down’s Syndrome which may be accessed as part of the child’s EHCP. There is also specialist teaching for communication and interaction, sensory impairment and physical difficulties.

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Down Syndrome Education DSE is another high quality resource, which provides both research on learning for children and young people with Down’s Syndrome as well as their evidence based See and Learn programmes to improve speech, language, numeracy and literacy.

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