The transformative impact of the Universal Design for Learning approach within the organizational level of school - InclusivEduHub as a collaboration model between special schools and mainstream schools

IncluzivEdu Hub is a pilot project developed in Bucharest, Romania that aims to offer and validate a new model of School for All based on the culture of inclusion in the context of a partnership developed between mainstream and special schools.

The transformative element of this experimental study is the Universal Design for Learning approach that was introduced into classroom work for 132 children from an inclusive school and another 130 students from a special school. The screening, based on the ICF functional profile, brings to the attention of the teacher the child's strengths in relation to his/her developmental needs, the evolution also being understood through the prism of the social factors that can facilitate or hinder development and educational performance.

The screening highlighted numerous emotional difficulties that the children in the experimental group were facing (24%), and also the challenge of identifying a significant number (36%) of high-functioning students whose abilities exceeded the school requirements. Enriching the curriculum with a creative collaborative learning program, TactileImages educational plans, peer-mediation and outdoor activities increased the quality of the educational practice within the pilot project. Alternatively, at the class level, the intervention could be oriented individually, in small groups.

This proposed model is a reaction to the Romanian educational system , which is rigidly focused on the acquisition of knowledge, and can no longer see its beneficiaries, the children and their complex needs.