In this third post in our Preparing your school’s Inclusion Strategy series, we bring together insights from Gemma Gwilliam and Dave Presky, two digital specialists working at the intersection of inclusion, technology, and school‑wide systems. Drawing on real‑world experience, they explore how digital tools can support inclusive practice, reduce cognitive load, and help schools translate their Inclusion Strategy into something pupils and staff experience every day.

Gemma Gwilliam – Head of Digital Learning, Education and Innovation for the “Portsmouth: The Digital City” Project

One of the most consistent messages from the work I’ve done with schools is that inclusion improves fastest when it is treated as a design issue, not a diagnosis. The schools that have made the biggest gains didn’t start by adding new interventions; they started by looking honestly at their universal offer and where unnecessary barriers were being created for pupils every day.

How consistent is the pupil experience across your school?

A helpful starting point is to consider how predictable and consistent the pupil experience really is. Across many schools, barriers often came not from the learning itself but from the systems around it. In some cases, different platforms were used in different classes; in others, there were different expectations about how instructions were given, how work was completed, or how children were expected to respond. For pupils with SEND, this inconsistency added significant cognitive load and was frequently mistaken for learning need. Improving clarity and consistency across the school had a noticeable impact on those pupils, while also making learning more manageable for everyone else.

Are you making the most of what you already have?

Another key question is how effectively schools are making use of the tools they already have. Most settings already use platforms such as Microsoft or Google and devices like Chromebooks, iPads, or Windows laptops, all of which include powerful built in accessibility features. Tools for dictation, text to speech, captions, screen reading, visual adjustments, and structured templates can remove barriers immediately but only if staff understand what is available and pupils are explicitly taught how and when to use them. One recurring issue was that these features existed but were not part of everyday teaching, meaning pupils remained reliant on adult support rather than developing independence. Building time into the curriculum to teach all pupils how to use these tools is an essential inclusion strategy in its own right.

What about training?

It is also important to consider staff needs as part of the universal offer. Inclusion is undermined when tools are introduced without adequate training, shared understanding, or time to embed them. In more inclusive settings, schools invested in helping all staff feel confident using a small number of agreed approaches well, rather than expecting individuals to find their own solutions. This reduced workload, improved consistency, and made inclusive practice more sustainable.

Including the wider school community

Parents and carers are another group often overlooked in inclusion planning. Clear, consistent use of technology can either strengthen home school communication or create additional barriers. Where schools aligned their systems for pupils, staff, and families by using shared platforms, common language and accessible formats, parents reported feeling better informed and more able to support their children. This was particularly important for families of children with SEND, where uncertainty or confusion can quickly become an additional barrier to learning.

Robust and inclusive assessment provision

When thinking about Inclusive Mainstream Funding, the most effective use was rarely about purchasing something new. Instead, it was about investing in approaches that improved quality first teaching at scale, built staff confidence, supported pupil independence, and made better use of systems already embedded across the school community. This made impact visible in everyday classrooms and easier to articulate within an Inclusion Strategy.

Of course, there are points in the system where additional considerations apply, particularly around statutory assessment. Writing moderation at the end of Key Stage 2 and formal examinations at the end of Key Stage 4 bring legitimate requirements around evidence, standardisation, and compliance. In these contexts, inclusive approaches still matter, but they must be implemented carefully and transparently. In practice, schools have been most successful where they have worked with specialist organisations such as Crick Software to ensure that their everyday inclusive practice aligns with moderation and assessment requirements, including JCQ compliance. This has enabled schools to maintain a strong universal offer while ensuring that pupils can access assessment fairly and that outcomes remain robust and defensible.

Do our policies truly reflect their experiences?

Before drafting the strategy itself, my biggest piece of advice would be to map what pupils, staff and families actually experience day to day, rather than what policies suggest should happen. Walking through a typical lesson, communication or learning task from different perspectives often highlights barriers that paperwork never reveals.

And a useful final question to ask is: if a pupil with additional needs joined tomorrow, how much of our universal offer would already work for them, and how confident would the adults around them be in supporting that?

Gemma’s key takeaways for Inclusion Strategy planning

Dave Presky – Digital Strategist and Head of IT at York House School

As we plan for the year ahead, we have a purposeful opportunity to reflect on our inclusion strategies and consider harnessing Assistive Technology (AT) for universal design within our schools.

Leadership vision and culture

Before we explore the specific technology that can remove barriers to learning within our settings, we must firstly ensure we have a secure culture to enable quality outcomes. It is crucial that your leadership team has a clear vision of how and why this investment can support all learners. Then this vision must be clearly shared and fostered over time.

Infrastructure and training

Educators must then be given the tools to enable such a vision to become a sustained reality. Within this digital culture change toolkit, practitioners must be confident that IT systems are securely in place so software, devices, and networks can achieve the desired outcomes.

Once secure, staff CPD must be effective and continuous. As well as large-scale inset training, short burst top-up or reminder video content is really powerful to enable busy teachers. Team teaching and collaboration is another way to explore potential, with regular opportunities to report back to all staff and enable momentum, address issues, and inspire others.

Risk and experimentation

To effectively address digital change, risk is often inevitable. Through risk we have an opportunity to push boundaries within our lessons, giving our students the freedom to express themselves in different formats and remove their barriers to learning. However, with risk, sometimes not everything goes to plan, but freedom to explore can release potential and foster universal design.

Start with simple, trusted solutions

Simple solutions can facilitate such change. A student sharing knowledge through inclusive open-ended framework tools, such as Book Creator or Explain Everything, creates an inclusive moment to share knowledge. Equally, barriers to reading and writing can be removed through Voice-to-Text or Text-to-Speech software. Visual access to learning can be facilitated through Widgit Symbols, or barriers to writing can be addressed rather than bypassed through purposefully designed word processors such as Clicker.

If we strive to achieve an effective inclusion strategy, we have the opportunity to reframe learning, remove barriers and frustration, and release our learners' potential.

Find out more

• This post forms part of our three part series on preparing for the Inclusion Strategy. You can also read HeadteacherChat® founder Lucy Coy’s advice for school leaders and Abigail Hawkins strategy writing guide from a SENCo’s perspective.
  
  
• You can find out how Gemma Gwilliam and her “Portsmouth: The Digital City” team used technology to raise literacy standards across the city here.
  
  
• Hear from Dave and the rest of the York House School staff on how Clicker has helped their pupils to overcome barriers to writing in their success story video.