Gill Baxby Casework and Monitoring Officer

1
Gill Baxby Casework and
Monitoring Officer

• Promoting disability equality in
  Warrington
• Primary Schools
• Childrens Services Directorate

2
Promoting Disability Equality in schools

• Do we have any disabled pupils, staff or parents?
• What is the disability equality duty?
• Where do I start?
• How could I make our school accessibility plan
  meet the requirements of a disability equality
  scheme?

3
DDA definition of disability

• A person is disabled if they have a mental or
  physical impairment which has a substantial and
  long term adverse effect on their ability to
  carry out normal day to day activities.

4
About 7 of children may count as
disabledCabinet office (2005) Improving the life
chances of disabled people

• About 6.76 of children primary and secondary
  schools are at School Action or have a
  statement
• DfES (2005)
  Statistical First Release

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Do we have any disabled staff and any disabled
parents ,carers or governors?

• About 11 million adults, about 24 of all adults
  may count as disabled
• Cabinet Office (2005) Improving the life chances
  of disabled people
• About 2.1 million disabled parents in the UK who
  have children under the age of 16
• Stickland (2003)
• Just over 4 of teachers declare a disability
• TTA (2004)

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Disability Equality Duty

• Cultural Change

7
The Disability Equality Duty

• The general duty
• The specific duty

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The General Duty

• All public bodies , including schools and local
  authorities to have due regard to the need to
• Promote equality of opportunity
• Eliminate discrimination
• Eliminate harassment related to a disability
• Promote positive attitudes towards disabled
  people
• Encourage disabled peoples participation in
  public life
• Take steps to take into account peoples
  disability, even where that involves more
  favourable treatment

9
The specific Duty

• Production of a Disability Equality Scheme
• Schools must-
• Involve disabled people
• Set out in their scheme
• -how disabled people have been involved
• -the arrangements for gathering
  information
• -how it will assess the impact of its
  policies and practices on disability equality

10
The specific duty (Cont)

• -the steps the school is going to take to
  meet the general duty ( the schools action plan)
• - how it will use information in review and
  planning
• Implement the actions in their scheme within 3
  years
• Report on their scheme annually
• Review and revise their scheme every three years

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Key Factors in making it work

• Vision and values
• A can do attitude
• A pro-active approach to identifying barriers and
  finding practical solutions
• Strong collaborative relationships with
  staff,pupils parents/carers and service users
• A positive approach to managing behaviour
• The use of expertise from outside of the school

12
What do you need for a good scheme?

• Starting points
• purpose and direction
• involvement
• information gathering
• mpact assessment
• Main priorities
• promote equality of opportunity
• eliminate discrimination

13
What to you need for a good scheme (cont)

• eliminate harassment
• Promote positive attitudes
• Encourage participation
• Take steps to meet needs, MORE FAVOURABLE
  TREATMENT
• Making it happen
• Implementation, action plan
• Publication
• Reporting
• Reviewing and revising the scheme

14
Key elements in a scheme, over and above
requirements of an accessibility plan

• Involvement of disabled people
• Information gathering
• Impact assessment
• Not just pupils, it is
• -staff
• -parents, carers, governors, others
  using the school

15

• Planstarting points
• Pupils
• vision and values
• Involvement
• Information gathering
• Main Priorities
• Increased access
• To the curriculum
• Improvements to the physical environment
• Information in different forms

• Scheme starting points
• Pupils, staff, parents
• Purpose and direction
• Involvement
• Information gathering
• Impact assessment
• Main Priorities
• Promote equality of opportunity
• Eliminate discrimination
• Eliminate harassment
• Promote positive attitudes
• Encourage participation
• Take steps to meet needs , more favourable
  treament

16
(Cont)

• Making it happen
• Implementation
• Publication
• Reporting
• Reviewing and revising plan

• Making it happen
• Implementation, action plan
• Publication
• Reporting
• Reviewing and revising the scheme

17
Key Management considerations

• Reasonable and practicable
• Links to accessibility planning duties
• A working group
• - a senior manager
• - a disabled person
• - other members
  eg.SENCO, a range of perspectives
• Working with the local authority
• -employment
• -procurement

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How will you go about this in your school?

• Identify the first steps in your school
• What challenges do you anticipate?