The Future of Education

School improvement is linked to a school’s collective capacity to respond to change [1]. In Ireland, recent policy initiatives to embed collaborative processes of school self-evaluation provide a blueprint for school leaders to build communities engaged in collective cycles of evaluation, planning, action, reflection and learning which supports schools to view all learners as unique and develop integrated systems of support which ensure that all learners have access to high quality education [2,3]. However, previous research led by the author indicates that discrete approaches to provision of additional educational supports for learners with special educational needs persists and is creating unsustainable roles for teachers tasked with the responsibility [4,5]. Thirty-three post-primary schools across the Education and Training Board (ETB) sector participated in a developmental project called provision mapping [6] to promote school-wide systematic, data-informed, and collaborative approaches to inclusive special education [7].  The project builds on an earlier, smaller-scale pilot [6]. The author led the design and implementation of the project in partnership with the Education and Training Board of Ireland (ETBI). This paper reports on research following a national-level two-year implementation cycle of the project and captures, through surveys and interviews, the experiences of school leaders involved. As a novel approach to systematic, school-wide leadership for inclusive special education, limited evidence currently exists in Ireland. This research is important to support future development and refinement of the process and to build the evidence base, with the intention to use the provision mapping framework to support inclusive school improvement across the wider post-primary sector in subsequent years.