Inclusion and equality: Evaluating education for pupils with additional support needs in mainstream schools aims to help schools meet the requirements laid down in the Standards in Scotland's Schools Act (2000) which places a statutory duty on education authorities to develop all children to their fullest potential.
It is one of a series of guides on self-evaluation and builds on advice given in the HMIE publications How good is our school? and Quality management in education.
The guide has defined children with additional support needs as those who 'experience barriers to their learning, achievement and full participation in the life of the school'. It uses 19 quality indicators to answer five key questions relating to the quality of the teaching, learning, support, environment and management of services for them.
In conducting an evaluation and drawing up action plans, the guide says, council and school staff should involve colleagues from other local authority services, such as social work and community learning and development as well as staff from health boards and trusts and voluntary agencies.
The guide says pupils with additional support needs must be able to participate as independently as possible in all school activities and be members of mainstream classes 'unless their educational needs are better met by other arrangements, such as spending time in a base, a special school or unit'.
The guide is on the website www.hmie.gov.uk. A CD-Rom version is to be made available to give online users access to a comprehensive range of reference material relevant to the education of pupils with additional support needs.