This paper reports on the findings from a study based in England, within a new school that opened its doors to students in August 2015. The school, established under relatively recent UK legislation as a ‘Free School’, set out to be inclusive, aiming to achieve this through its architecture and design, an admissions policy which brought students from four ‘nodes’ across the city, mixed ability class organization and inclusive teaching practices. The potential risks of the Free School legislation to promote segregation and exclusion (for example by facilitating the setting up of schools by groups representing selective interests, faiths or demographics) have been recognized (Allen, 2010; Morris, 2015) and consequently make the inclusive ambitions of this school distinctive. The research project has tracked the school’s growth and has examined the extent to which it has developed as an inclusive school. One key strand of the research has involved photo-elicitation with children and young people. Photographs within the school, taken by the children and young people were used as the basis for interviews about their school and their space and to explore inclusion/exclusion in the school. Data from the interviews, including the images, were analysed using a framework of social capital (Field, 2017), which focuses on networks, norms and trust. To contextualize findings from the interviews, observations were also carried out within various spaces at the school. This allowed us to map the relationships among children and young people within formal, informal and social spaces in the school and to explore the ways in which these different spaces have enabled or restricted inclusion.

Allen, R. (2010). Replicating Swedish ‘free school’ reforms in England. University of Bristol. Retrieved from http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo/publications/allen10.pdf. Accessed 10 July 2013. Field, J (2017) Social capital. 3rd edition. London: Routledge. Morris, R (2015) Free schools and disadvantaged intakes. British Journal of Educational Research, 41 (4), 535-552.