Implementing inclusive policy and practice is found to be challenging in secondary schools. In particular in traditional school systems, high stakes testing largely defines the agenda of a school’s long term policy and its daily practice with respect to individual students. Legislation for inclusion may easily be perceived as a disturbing factor interfering with the school’s competitive mission for excellence. Especially in a context of streaming, such as the Flemish secondary education system, where achievement based grouping and ability discourse is inherent, a separate system of special education is often maintained on top of the general or vocational streams that already exist. With both a tracking system and a segregated system of special education in place, 4% of all secondary school students in Flanders (Belgium) attend a special school. Meanwhile, the number of secondary schools that collaborate with special schools for in-school support of students with a disability, has grown over the last decades. When resources are provided, special needs supports are also used in regular secondary education. A dual system of special educational needs thus exists. In spite of a climate of resistance and low self-efficacy beliefs of teachers, inclusive policies and practices are being developed in secondary schools. Although at odds with the barriers for inclusion inherent in a traditional secondary schools’ system, special education support services collaborate in schools in order to implement inclusive practice. Whether and how these can move schools forward towards school-wide support for inclusion, is the focus of this paper.

In order to identify key strategies of secondary schools to move forward towards inclusion, the main research question is: what are the processes that secondary schools unfold to implement inclusive practice? 

• What are the school-wide strategies deployed to develop inclusive practice?
• What are the strategies and actions performed at class and student level to enhance the learning and participation of students with special educational needs?

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