Anyone who has taken even a vague interest in the formulation of social policy since Labour came to office can’t have failed to notice the frequency of the word “inclusion”.

It is particularly applied in the ideas of social inclusion and therefore has a direct link to the world of education. For many of the socially excluded, a poor or inappropriate educational experience is the start of a slippery downward slope.

However, when educationists think of inclusion in school terms, they not only think of the attempt to provide good schooling for all pupils, regardless of social or economic background, but also relate the expression to the inclusion of those pupils who previously would have attended special schools.

This is a fraught area for management, as St Margaret’s Academy in Livingston, West Lothian, discovered when it first admitted two special needs pupils to the third year two years ago. The preparation leaves you in no doubt as to the importance and political will for inclusion to be successful. Resources are made available for changes to the school fabric, for extra materials and for additional staff support.

Meeting the parents and pupils for the first time is a nervous affair. Sometimes, these parents have had a hard fight for every minute of their children’s schooling. They want to believe a school’s reassurances, but past experiences may triumph over their optimism. As a manager, you find yourself in that least preferred situation: staring into the unknown.

In the case of St Margaret’s Academy, the staff have been blessed with supportive parents and a couple of absolutely superb pupils whose determination to integrate has been an inspiration to all.

They have had to be brave enough to recognise that inclusion and equality of opportunity does not mean treating every pupil exactly the same, but then the school already operated on that basis. The staff formulated a creative arts programme to promote inclusion, using life skills, music, art and outdoor education. The aim was to boost self-esteem and the programme runs not just for the inclusion pupils but for a large group of their peers, for whom it was recognised that being included could be beneficial.

You could claim the inclusion has been successful on the basis that, if you visited the school, you would have no chance of spotting the inclusion pupils. The real success, though, is that in the school’s efforts to manage its resources flexibly to provide them with an appropriate educational experience, the pupils have been integrated fully into the school community and its development plan.

If the hard but rewarding task of inclusion is a high point of a manager’s remit, the equal and opposite experience comes with exclusion.

In basic terms, exclusion is a legally covered option, available within a school only to the headteacher and only if “to remain in school would be to the detriment of the pupil’s education, or to that of other pupils”. Parents have a right to appeal against exclusion, the local authority monitors all exclusions carefully, and the excluded pupil has a right to continuing educational provision from his school. There are also limits as to the time a pupil can be excluded without other support and agencies being called in to assess the situation.

In practice, this means that pupils are only excluded for violence or threatening behaviour, for serious and continued non-cooperation with staff or for reasons of health and safety.

It is certainly the least acceptable part of a manager’s remit. Very few parents are anything less than alarmed when they receive the news and a surprising number of pupils recognise the seriousness of such a step. It leads to a sometimes extended series of re-entry meetings, negotiated strategies and targeted support for the pupil.

For the manager, apart from dealing with the stress often caused to the family, he or she has to walk the tightrope between supporting staff whose ability to teach is being hindered by a disruptive pupil, and ensuring that all possible in-school strategies have been employed before the final step to exclusion is taken.

Effective management systems should ensure that the whole school community - pupils, staff and parents - are clear about what will lead to exclusion and what should be handled in other ways.

Who to keep in school, who to keep out and how to handle both is a management issue of giant proportions.