Death Of A Nightingale: Inclusion Or Disillusion? And Other Heresies

About 100 Special Schools have been closed in the UK since 1997 .All three political parties have endorsed the policy of Inclusion to a greater or lesser extent, with more and more children with special needs being admitted to mainstream schools. A play centred on a special school faced with closure is the setting for a play. It has been written as a polemic, questioning the overall wisdom of the policy as well as the method of its implementation. It goes well beyond that. It uses the story as a vehicle in which to travel the world and the problems it faces. But the play is unusual. It has been written to be read. It has a prologue and explanatory notes that are all designed, along with the Play, to encourage the reader to stop and to think, and to question many assumptions about education, politics and religion. It suggests that they should not always be assumed. It goes where angels fear to tread. "People have asked me who I have written this for. The answer obviously is for anyone interested enough to want to read it. But I have had in my mind those who have a care and concern for the rising generation of children, in particular their parents, their teachers and those with specific responsibility for them. I pose questions especially for them - but not just for them - which they might like to think about. I give some short answers knowing full well that there are sometimes very long answers or no easy answers at all." Whether you agree with it or not, you will not be the same person when you have finished reading it that you were before you started.