CURRICULUM ACCESS POLICY

INTRODUCTION

The School and LEAs are required under the SEN and Disability Act 2001 (amending the Disability Discrimination Act 1995) not to treat disabled pupils less favourably and to take reasonable steps to avoid putting disabled pupils at a substantial disadvantage.

A person has a disability if he or she has a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse affect on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.

The School is required to prepare a plan to improve the accessibility of the school for disabled pupils (the planning duty).

STATUTORY RESPONSIBILITY

The governing body is responsible for supervising the production of the accessibility plan for the School.

An accessibility plan is a plan for:

(a) increasing the extent to which disabled pupils can participate in the school curriculum (including teaching and learning of a broad and balanced curriculum but also the wider curriculum of the School such as participation in after-school clubs, leisure, sporting and cultural activities or school visits);

(b) improving the physical environment to increase the extent to which disabled pupils can take advantage of education and associated services (physical environment of the school and physical aids to access education);

(c) improving the delivery to disabled pupils of written information which is provided to pupils who are not disabled. This should be done within a reasonable period of time and in formats which take account of views expressed by the pupils or parents about their preferred means of communication.

The accessibility plan must be in writing. The School has a duty to review its plan, revise it if necessary, and implement it. The school is required to allocate adequate resources for implementing the plan. The plan will be reviewed annually.

POLICY

In the policy the School will undertake to do the following:
• An audit of current accessibility (to identify barriers to access or inclusion) including 
• the physical environment 
• the provision of auxiliary aids and services 
• teaching and learning practices; the curriculum 
• staff training 
• the culture and ethos of the School 
• the provision of written information


The School will:
• Identify actions to eliminate these barriers, ie list all the necessary adaptations (including realistic cost estimates), which can be divided into categories of staff training; teaching and learning practices; refurbishment and maintenance; minor capital expenditure; and major capital expenditure. These will be prioritized into short- medium and long term priorities. The plan will include strategies to address these priorities with clear implementation arrangements and a timeframe for the work.
• Set goals and targets (with timeframes and methods of evaluation)
• Consult on the plan and publicise the plan.
• State how the effects of the plan will be evaluated, (eg satisfaction of disabled pupils, satisfaction of staff teaching pupils with a disability, numbers of children with disabilities involved in a wide range of activities undertaken in the School, improvements in the physical space).

CURRICULUM ACCESS PLAN

The plan (see separate document in School Policies section) will cover the following topics:

• Increasing the extent to which disabled pupils can participate in the school curriculum

• Improving the physical environment of the school

• Improving the delivery of information to disabled pupils

The scope of the plan will be determined in part by the limited physical space of the School, the large number of students and staff using the site during any school day and budgetary constraints. School staff will be undertake the audit and prepare a draft plan which will then be circulated to the relevant governor subcommittees (Personnel and Finance) prior to full ratification by the governing body.

Date of origin: October 2003
Governors’ annual review: Autumn Term

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William Ellis School Curriculum / Learning Environment School Access Plan 2004–2006

Please click here for the Access to the Curriculum table, this will open in Microsoft Word.