Accessibility Plan

Rationale

Queen Margaret Primary School strives to ensure that the culture and ethos of the school are such that, whatever the abilities and needs of members of the school community, everyone is equally valued and treated with respect. Pupils should be provided with the opportunity to experience, understand and value diversity. Inclusion is at the heart of all that we do alongside with our values.

Our school is committed to ensuring equal access for all its employees, pupils and other members of our school community with any disability. We will ensure that anyone with a disability is not treated less favourably in any procedures, practises and service delivery. Everyone regardless of their abilities are included to all aspects of school life.

Introduction

Under the Equality Act 2010, schools are required 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.

Our school is also committed to ensuring staff are trained in equality issues with reference to the Equality Act 2010, including understanding disability issues. Our school supports any available partnerships to develop and implement the plan to provide purposeful inclusive environment.

We have endeavoured to include a range of stakeholders in the development of this accessibility plan. The plan will be made available online on the school website at all times, and paper copies are available upon request.

Our school’s complaints procedure covers the accessibility plan. If you have any concerns relating to accessibility in school, this procedure sets out the process for raising these concerns, as with any other concerns or complaints within school.

Definition of Disability

‘A person suffers a disability if he or she has a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long term adverse effect on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities’. Physical or mental impairments can include sensory impairments (such as those affecting sight and hearing) and learning difficulties. The definition also covers certain medical conditions when they have a long term and substantial effect on pupils’ everyday lives.

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 he or she has a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ adverse effect on his or her ability to undertake normal day to day activities. Under the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Code of Practice, ‘longterm’ 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 nondisabled pupils. This can include, for example, the provision of an auxiliary aid or adjustments to premises.

Here at Queen Margaret Primary School we recognise our duty under the above acts:

• To not discriminate against disabled pupils in their admissions and exclusions and provision of education and associated services,
• To take reasonable steps to avoid putting disabled pupils at substantial disadvantage,
• To produce, publish and have available an Accessibility Plan.

The school recognises and values parents’ knowledge of their child’s disability and its effect on his/her abilities to carry out normal activities. We respects the parents’ and child’s right to confidentiality, and encourage a partnership between parents and school to help facilitate the child’s needs.

The school provides all pupils with a broad and balanced curriculum. The curriculum is scaffolded and adjusted to meet the needs of individual pupils and their preferred learning styles. It endorses the key principles of the National Curriculum Framework which underpin the development of a more inclusive curriculum: setting suitable learning challenges; responding to pupils’ diverse learning needs; overcoming potential barriers to learning and assessment for individuals and groups of pupils.

The Accessibility Plan and planning duty

The plan covers all three main strands of the planning duty:

1. Education & related activities
   • The school will continue to seek and follow the advice of Local Authority services, such as advisory teachers and other specialists, and professionals from the Primary Care Trust (PCT). We wish to increase the extent to which disabled pupils can participate in the school’s curriculum.
2. Physical Environment
   • The school will take full account of the needs of pupils and visitors with physical difficulties and sensory impairments when planning and undertaking future improvements and refurbishments of the site and premises, such as improved access, lighting, acoustic treatment and colour schemes, and more accessible facilities and fittings.
3. Provision of information
   • The school will make itself aware of local services, including those provided through the Local Authority, for providing information in alternative formats when required or requested.

Other Related Policies

The plan will contribute to the review and revision of the school’s other policies and documentation, where inclusion for all, and guidance under the Equality Act 2010 will be followed.

Aims for Accessibility Plan

Queen Margaret Primary School aims to include all pupils, including those with disabilities, in the full life of the school. Our strategies to do this will include:

• Having high expectations of all pupils
• Finding ways in which all pupils can take part in the full curriculum including sport and music
• Planning out-of-school activities including all school trips and excursions so that pupils with disabilities can participate • Setting admissions policy and criteria which does not discriminate against pupils with disabilities or treat them unfairly
• Devising teaching strategies which will remove barriers to learning and participation for pupils with disabilities
• Planning the physical environment of the school to cater for the needs of pupils with disabilities
• Raising awareness of disability amongst school staff (teaching and non-teaching) through a programme of training
• By providing written information for pupils with disabilities in a form which is user friendly
• By using language which does not offend in all its literature and make staff and pupils aware of the importance of language

By examining our library and reading books to ensure that there are examples of positive images of disabled people. Making inclusive displays and aspirations displays with famous people who have disabilities.

Monitoring

Queen Margaret Primary School recognises that monitoring is essential to ensure that pupils with disabilities are not being disadvantaged, and that monitoring leads to action planning. We will monitor:

• Admissions
• Attainment
• Attendance
• Exclusions
• SEN Register
• Impact of teaching & learning
• Extra-curricular activities
• Trips and residential visits
• Homework
• Selection & recruitment of staff
• Governing Body representation
• Parents attending consultation meetings