Designing an inclusive curriculum is not about creating something separate for certain pupils or retrofitting adaptations after the fact. Instead, it is about establishing principles that place inclusion at the heart of curriculum thinking from the outset; principles that resonate across primary and secondary phases, and within mainstream and specialist settings alike.

In reflecting on what truly underpins inclusive practice, four key principles emerged. While every school context is unique, these principles offer a shared foundation for curriculum design that seeks to ensure all young people feel seen, valued, challenged, and able to thrive.

The principles outlined in this article are intended not as a checklist, but as a starting point for reflection and discussion.

Principle One: Being Flexible and Open

An inclusive PE curriculum should feel less like a rigid script and more like a living, evolving map. While curriculum frameworks and documentation provide important direction, they should also create space for teachers to adapt, pause, revisit, and respond to the needs of the young people in front of them.

Being flexible and open means recognising that no two classes — and no two pupils — are the same. Inclusive curriculum design empowers teachers to use their professional judgement to shape learning experiences around the unique strengths, motivations, backgrounds, and needs of their pupils. Sometimes that may mean spending longer on a particular area of learning, revisiting concepts in different ways, or adapting activities to ensure every child can experience success and belonging.

This approach also encourages curriculum documentation that uses open, non-didactic language. Rather than prescribing a single route through learning, inclusive curriculum materials should offer possibilities, prompts, and adaptable ideas that help teachers respond to their context. In PE, this may involve broadening the intended outcomes beyond solely physical performance to include social, emotional, and cognitive development. Confidence, teamwork, resilience, self-awareness, communication, and decision-making are all valuable outcomes that deserve equal recognition within a high-quality PE curriculum.

Flexibility also relies on culture. Teachers should feel trusted and supported to exercise their expertise and intuition, knowing there is rarely one “right” way to teach a concept or deliver a unit of work. Schools and departments that foster collaboration, reflection, and openness create environments where teachers can learn alongside one another, share practice, and continually refine their curriculum offer in response to pupil needs.

Central to this is the importance of youth voice and recognising that inclusive curricula should be shaped with the young people themselves. Pupils should feel seen, heard, and valued within their PE experiences, with opportunities to influence learning and recognise themselves within the curriculum. When young people can see their identities, interests, experiences, and ideas reflected in what they are learning, engagement, belonging, and meaningful participation become far more likely.

Principle 2: Access for all

When adapting the curriculum, it is important to stay focused on what we are striving to achieve. Rather than just adjusting and adapting activities the learning objectives must remain the focus. An inclusion curriculum focuses on creating different pathways to the achievement of key objectives and on removing barriers to success of the pupils.

A good example would be ‘Pupils will send a ball, with control, to hit a target’. We adapt how we reach that objective. This can be done by adapting the size of the target, the size and shape of the ball, offering support such as a ramp, generating a noise by the target to support someone with a visual impairment or providing direct technique instructions if the trial-and-error process can’t be accessed. The objective remains the same and the means to success is adapted.

Equivalent skills are recognised and taught in parallel. Children are taught to run, jump and improve their agility. A child who is a self-propelling wheelchair user needs to learn to propel accurately, how to use bursts of speed and effort to get up curbs and how to move themselves sideways in tight spaces. Children learn to identify where they are in space through movement and observation. A child with a visual impairment may need to learn to orientate themselves through touch and the accurate use of their cane. 

Principle Three: Inclusion Throughout

An inclusive PE curriculum is one that is designed with inclusion at its very heart. Too often, adaptations for certain pupils are just a bolt-on suggestion or a separate box at the end of a lesson plan. Truly inclusive curriculum design moves beyond this by weaving inclusive thinking, language, and approaches directly into the core of curriculum documentation and planning.

This matters because it helps to normalise difference. When teachers consistently encounter a diverse range of delivery methods, adaptations, and approaches embedded within curriculum materials, variety becomes the norm rather than the exception. The same is true for pupils. Inclusive practice becomes part of the everyday learning experience, helping all young people recognise that difference is expected, valued, and accommodated.

Embedding inclusion throughout curriculum planning also reduces the pressure on teachers to make reactive adjustments “in the moment”. Instead of relying on well-intentioned improvisation, teachers are supported by curriculum materials that already anticipate a range of needs and experiences. For example, guidance on structuring an activity for a wheelchair user, adapting communication for a pupil with a visual impairment, or offering alternatives for pupils with sensory needs should sit naturally within the main body of planning rather than existing separately from it.

When inclusive strategies are built into core instructions in this way, the curriculum itself begins to assume responsibility for inclusive delivery. Lesson plans that routinely suggest multiple ways to access learning send a clear message to both staff and pupils: everybody is considered a primary participant in PE, not an exception to it.

This approach focuses on anticipating and valuing the needs of all learners from the outset, rather than responding only when barriers emerge. High-quality inclusive planning creates immediate access to learning, supports shared responsibility across staff, and builds a culture where every young person can belong, participate, and thrive.

In busy school environments, it can be easy for the urgent demands of day-to-day teaching to overtake the important work of curriculum design and reflection. Yet investing time in embedding inclusion by design has lasting impact. It shapes culture, influences behaviours, and creates learning experiences that better serve every child in the years ahead.

Principle 4: Inclusion as standard

The stigma that can be associated with difference can be prevented in a PE context by inclusive approaches being applied across the curriculum day in day out, regardless of who is present. Adaptive equipment should become a common part of the generic PE kit available in the PE cupboard. This prevents any pupils being highlighted or spot lit as different by the equipment they need to use because there ceases to be ‘standard’ and ‘adapted’ equipment, its all becomes ‘just equipment’.

When games and sports are introduced the framing of these activities is important. There is a huge range of sports and activities available. To be truly inclusive these can be introduced as ‘just sports’. Boccia, seated volleyball and wheelchair basketball don’t need to be introduced as parasports or disability sports, they can be given the same introduction and same weighting as other sports, like football.

An adaptable flexible culture becomes embedded as the norm when pupils don’t feel singled out, they recognize they get the help they need and stigma is prevented as pupils build empathy for pupils who need additional help. Rather than resenting it, students realise that all sports, games and approaches have equal value.

Interested in finding out more about designing inclusive curriculums? Watch the recordings from Inclusion Live Week 2026 here for practical insights, strategies and real world examples.