Leadership for inclusion: thinking it through

This course will help you to think about your professional educational situation and the ways in which you can develop your practices alongside others. It will provide you with a better understanding of competing values within the school system and how to identify and build upon opportunities to lead and collaborate in this context. You will explore some key conceptual underpinnings of ideas associated with difference, placing your own experiences, views and beliefs in the context of others, helping you to identify ways to take a lead in providing education for all.This course is part of a suite of 4, which seek to provide students with a better understanding of inclusion and leadership in schools, in particular: leading in an inclusive way (inclusive leadership) and playing a leading role in inclusive contexts (leadership for inclusion). The material will build upon the skills and experiences students already have, so that through their own expectations and understandings of practice they can reflect on personal and institutional responses to enacting leadership that support the involvement of all. Recognising the calls for collaboration and ongoing development of practice, students will be supported to explore the experiences of practitioners, managers and learners working alongside others and how they might develop their own capacity in this regard. The course will look towards practical approaches which place relationships at the heart of the leadership process, encouraging all of us to be confident, successful, responsible and effective within the learning situation, not only for ourselves but as advocates and supporters for each other.If you are interested in this course, you might be interested in the Open University Inclusive Practice Leadership and Management Masters pathways.