Accessibility Policy 2024
Accessibility Policy 2024
1. Aims
Schools are required under the Equality Act 2010 to have an accessibility plan. The purpose of the plan is to:
- Increase the extent to which disabled pupils can participate in the curriculum
- Improve the physical environment of the school to enable disabled pupils to take better advantage of education, benefits, facilities and services provided
- Improve the availability of accessible information to disabled pupils
Our school aims to treat all its pupils fairly and with respect. This involves providing access and opportunities for all pupils without discrimination of any kind.
Ashcombe Primary School values the abilities and achievements of all its pupils and is committed to providing the best possible learning environment for every child.
The plan will be made available online on the school website, and paper copies are available upon request.
Our school is also committed to ensuring staff are trained in equality issues with reference to the Equality Act 2010, including understanding disability issues.
The school supports any available partnerships to develop and implement the plan.
We will continue the advice of Local Authority services, Kaleidoscope Multi-Academy Trust and outside agencies such as such as specialist teacher advisers and SEN consultants and appropriate health professionals to develop and implement our plan.
Our school’s complaints procedure covers the accessibility plan. If you have any concerns relating to accessibility in school, the complaints procedure sets out the process for raising these concerns.
We have included a range of stakeholders in the development of this accessibility plan, including parents, staff and governors.
2. Legislation and guidance
This document meets the requirements of schedule 10 of the Equality Act 2010 and the Department for Education (DfE) guidance for schools on the Equality Act 2010.
The Equality Act 2010 defines an individual as disabled if they have a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ adverse effect on their ability to undertake normal day to day activities.
Under the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Code of Practice, ‘long-term’ is defined as ‘a year or more’ and ‘substantial’ is defined as ‘more than minor or trivial’. The definition includes sensory impairments such as those affecting sight or hearing, and long-term health conditions such as asthma, diabetes, epilepsy and cancer.
Schools are required to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ for pupils with disabilities under the Equality Act 2010, to alleviate any substantial disadvantage that a disabled pupil faces in comparison with non-disabled pupils. This can include, for example, the provision of an auxiliary aid or adjustments to premises.
This policy complies with our funding agreement and articles of association.
3. Action plan
This action plan sets out the aims of our accessibility plan in accordance with the Equality Act 2010.
aim | current good practice
| objectives
| actions to be taken | Person responsible | date to complete actions by | success criteria |
Increase access to the curriculum for pupils with a disability |
| Long Term Improve the quality of our Wave 1 Teaching so that high quality inclusive teaching is on offer for all. Medium Term Develop our curriculum so that powerful knowledge is available and accessible to all of our students. Review our curriculum content so that examples of disability are included into our curriculum sequence Targets for SEND students are regularly reviewed by a team around the child. Short term We review the resources children use to support their access to the curriculum.
|
Develop teacher expertise through rigorous, high quality CPD and monitoring by the Raising Standards Leads (RSLs)
Map a coherent and sequenced curriculum and review its implementation
Review curriculum content for examples of disability
Student reviews take place 3 times per year and impact is recorded
Review to ensure students have access to the proper resources they need for curriculum access |
C. Penny, K. Evans, J. Rose, K. Perryman
S. Burditt
S.Burditt
K.Evans
K.Evans |
Continuous
Continuous – in line with the MAT curriculum network group
31/12/24
Continuous
Continuous
| Teachers trained in instructional and scaffolding methods for inclusive practice. |
Improve and maintain access to the physical environment | The environment is adapted to the needs of pupils as required. This includes:
| No objectives set – the main school site is a new build and fully compliant. | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Improve the delivery of information to pupils with a disability | Our school uses a range of communication methods to ensure information is accessible. This includes:
| For children to have resources they need to access the curriculum. | SENDCo to liaise with Sensory Support to provide resources needed for individual children. | K.Evans | Ongoing | Resources will be in place for individual children. |
4. Monitoring arrangements
This document will be reviewed every 3 years, but may be reviewed and updated more frequently if necessary.
It will be approved by the full governing body.
5. Links with other policies
This accessibility plan is linked to the following policies and documents:
- Risk assessment policy
- Health and safety policy
- Equality information and objectives (public sector equality duty) statement for publication
- Special educational needs (SEN) information report
- Supporting pupils with medical conditions policy