Inclusion Office

Inclusion Coordination

Inclusion coordinators have varied task focuses and area responsibilities depending on the school district. They are teachers for special educational support or general teaching and are seconded to the school district for the regional inclusion process.

The following task areas can be summarized:  

• Planning, coordination, communication, and development in the context of the transition from grade 4 to 5

• Planning, coordination, communication, and development in the context of the transition from preschool to primary school

• Support for school supervision in personnel planning for inclusive education

• Accompaniment and support of inclusive school development in close cooperation with lower school supervision

• Support for school authorities in the regional educational process

• Advice regarding special educational support

• Networking and communication with inclusion coordinators from other districts as well as the Inclusion Office of the Cologne District Government

If parents and legal guardians, teachers, or school principals have questions or concerns, they are welcome to contact the inclusion coordinator at the school district office for the Oberbergischer Kreis.

Inclusion Specialist Consulting

Inclusion specialists have task focuses and area responsibilities that vary depending on the school office. They are teachers for special education and are seconded to the school office for their role.

The Ministry of School and Education's circular summarizes the following areas of responsibility:

• Advising and supporting school principals and on-site teachers on issues of inclusive education and the quality of special education at deployment schools

• Supporting school principals at their place of work in the conceptual design and further development of inclusive education

• Organizing and conducting continuous professional exchanges for teachers in general education schools in the region

For any questions about inclusion, feel free to contact the inclusion specialist at the School Office for the Oberberg District.

Test and Literature Lending

Schools have the option to borrow testing procedures and specialist literature from the Inclusion Office of the school district for three weeks. The lending is free of charge, and available consumables can be used for free. Otherwise, the agreement is that the testing person provides the materials through their institution.

A list of borrowable and available tests and literature can be found here. 

Important information about the use of testing procedures within a report to determine special educational support needs:

Within the framework of report creation, testing procedures can be applied without parental consent.

However, the testing procedures used must have a meaningful reference and the necessity for testing must be justified. For example, if a child underwent a detailed intelligence diagnosis a few weeks ago, an additional intelligence test should be carefully considered and only performed in exceptional cases.

For existing support needs:

Parents must generally be informed about the application of standardized testing procedures. Here, too, transparency towards parents must be ensured as part of the joint task of education and upbringing by schools and parents.

IQ tests conducted prior to AO-SF procedures or when support needs LE/GG are not yet available always require the consent of the legal guardians. Results from external diagnostics may be used for a maximum of 2 years. Typically, there is no IQ testing in schools before a report.