Disability Equality Briefing Jane Carter

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Disability Equality BriefingJane Carter

• How much do you know already about Disability
  and the Disability Discrimination Act?

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Question 1
What percentage of students may count as
disabled? a) 2 b) 5
c) 6.76 d) 7 e)
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Question 2
Which of these is disabled? A person with
a) a visual impairment b) asthma
c) cancer d) a learning
difficulty e) speech and language
difficulty
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Question 3

• When do you need to make reasonable
  adjustments?
• a) when a student has been in the establishment
  for a while and youve assessed
  what might constitute a barrier
• when the student arrives
• when the student is offered a place
• d) before any of the above

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Admissions Is this discrimination?

• What Ive done is Ive invited parents in,
  sometimes with the child, sometimes without the
  child, and I have walked them around the
  building. Quite fast, sometimes quite
  deliberately when theres a lot of movement going
  on and then Ive just turned to the parent and
  said, do you think your child could cope with
  this? So rather than say, no, I would say to
  the parent, do you think this is fair? I think
  sometimes you have to let parents realise for
  themselves that this just isnt an appropriate
  placement.
• Meeting medical needs in mainstream education,
  NCB,2006

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Question 4
What percentage of young people with
disabilities said they had been bullied at
school? a) 12 b) 21 c) 33 d)
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A few more statistics

• 7.7 of children with disabilities have missed
  out on a school trip
• 19.5 miss out on extra-curricular activities
• 25 of young people with Autism have been
  excluded at some point
• 1 in 110 has a diagnosis of Autism
• 16 year olds with disabilities are twice as
  likely to be out of education, training or work.
  This increases to three times as likely at 19.
• 21 of 16-24 year olds with disabilities have no
  qualifications compared with 9 of young people
  over all.

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Question 5

• Which of the following might be a reasonable
  adjustment?
• choosing an accessible venue for a trip
• b) playing football with a sounding ball
• c) swapping round classroom accommodation
• d) setting up a buddy system
• e) providing a lap top
• f) planning lessons so that all students make
  progress
• g) running an extra-curricular activity at
  lunchtime
• instead of after school to enable a student
  who travels by
• taxi to attend
• h) demolishing the building and rebuilding it as
  single storey

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Question 6
Of pupils starting Y7 below NC level 2 in
English, what percentage might be expected to
gain 1 level by end of KS3? a)
10 b) 34
c) 55 d) 66
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Tracking Progress (1)

• Good schools use the data to focus on better
  outcomes, with a particular emphasis on raising
  attainment, for every child regardless of
  circumstances.
• Making Good Progress, DfES, 2007

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Duties and Definitions
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Defining Disability

• The DDA definition is broad and includes a wide
  range of impairments a physical or mental
  impairment which has a substantial and long-term
  adverse effect on his or her ability to carry out
  normal day-to-day activities.
• A common perception is that it applies to a small
  group of people. In practice, it applies to a
  much larger group 24 of adults and 7 of under
  19s.
• However, not all those with SEN are disabled and
  similarly not all those with disabilities have
  SEN.

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Existing Disability Discrimination duties (April
2003) part 4 of the DDA

• Schools are required to anticipate the barriers
  that disabled pupils may face, and remove or
  minimise them.
• A school discriminates if
• It treats a disabled pupil or prospective pupil
  less favourably
• It fails to take reasonable steps to avoid
  placing disabled pupils at a substantial
  disadvantage. This duty is often known as the
  'reasonable adjustments' duty.
• Parents who feel their child has been
  discriminated against can make a claim to the SEN
  and Disability Tribunal the appeal is against
  the School.

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Planning duties part 4 of the DDA

• Since April 2003 the governing body has had to
  ensure schools have an accessibility plan,
  covering
• physical access
• curricular access
• the provision of information in alternative
  formats
• In 2004 Ofsted reported that over 50 of schools
  did not have plans and that those that did
  focused only on accommodation. In too many
  cases the plans were mainly paper exercises to
  fulfil a statutory responsibility rather than
  demonstrating a clear commitment to improving
  access.

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The New Duty
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The Disability Equality Duty under the DDA 2005
(1)

• All public bodies must have regard to the need
  to
• Eliminate discrimination
• Eliminate harassment related to a disability
• Promote equality of opportunity between disabled
  people and other people
• Promote positive attitudes towards disabled
  people
• Encourage participation by disabled people in
  public life
• Take steps to take account of disabled people's
  disabilities even where that involves treating
  disabled people more favourably than other people.

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The Disability Equality Duty under the DDA
2005 (2)

• One major difference is that the new duties apply
  to
• Learners
• Staff
• Parents
• Other community users
• Secondary Schools must publish a Disability
  Equality Scheme by 4th December 2006, Primary
  and Special Schools by 3rd December 2007.

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The Disability Equality Scheme

• The DfES Guidance Implementing the Disability
  Discrimination Act in Schools and Early Years
  Settings, contains an excellent template
  /aide-memoire to help produce a Disability
  Equality Scheme.
• This scheme must incorporate
• An action plan
• Details of consultation and involvement of
  disabled learners, staff, parents and community
  members in developing the scheme
• Arrangements for reviewing the effectiveness of
  the action plan and preparing subsequent schemes.
• The Scheme must be published, then progress
  against the actions listed reported on annually.
  The Scheme must then be revised every three
  years.

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Tribunal issues to date

• admissions
• failure to administer medicines
• lack of risk assessments
• school trips
• punishment for behaviour related to disability
• failure to deal with bullying related to
  disability
• selection arrangements
• excluding pupils from activities for health and
  safety reasons
• dis-applying from the National Curriculum
  unnecessarily.

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Remedies

• A public apology in a newspaper
• An order to re-run an activity e.g. a trip,
  including the disabled pupil
• An order to train staff and governors on a
  specific issue
• An order to review school policies and guidelines
• An order for the school to fund additional
  tuition to compensate lost teaching etc.
• No financial compensation

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The Wrong Trousers
One of the first claims to be supported by the
Disability Rights Commission under Part 4 of the
DDA, related to a 6 year old with severe eczema.
He had been advised by his doctors to wear 100
cotton clothing. The school uniform trousers were
not 100 cotton. When he attended school in his
cotton trousers he was told that he must wear the
uniform trousers. A claim was lodged with the
Tribunal, but was settled before the hearing.
Meanwhile his mother had moved him to another
school where he was allowed to wear cotton
trousers.
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The important messages from these early cases

• There are some important messages from these
  early claims to the Tribunal
• a blanket policy is one of the most likely ways,
  if not the most likely way, in which
  discrimination may occur
• it is important that reasonable adjustments are
  made for pupils whose behaviour is related to
  their disability. Schools should not treat
  incidents as disciplinary matters where
  reasonable adjustments should have been made
• a claim of discrimination may extend to the way
  the school has used, or failed to use, its SEN
  resources.

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Issues to Consider

• Admissions
• Behaviour Policy
• Rewards and Sanctions e.g attendance schemes
• Positive promotion eg through PSHE, Assembly
  Programme, visitors to school
• Bullying Policy
• Trips
• Health Safety, risk assessments
• Extra-curricular activities and Extended Services

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Issues to Consider

• Curriculum, particularly 14-19
• Accessibility of signs and information for
  pupils, parents, staff and community users,
  including website.
• Consultation, seeking views of pupils, parents,
  staff and community users
• Recruitment and Selection, job descriptions,
  person specifications
• Lettings

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Further information and support

• www.warwickshire.gov.uk/disabilityed
• Tel [phone]
• Email janecarter_at_warwickshire.gov.uk