Teachers

Legal position

There are three main strands of legislation covering disabled pupils in school. These are;

·        The SEN Framework (Part IV of the Education Act, 1996)

·        The disability discrimination duties (sections 28A-28C of the Disability Discrimination Act, 1995)

·        Planning duties (sections 28D and 28E of the Disability Discrimination Act, 1995.)

The disability duties in the DDA which came into force in September, 2002 provide protection for disabled pupils and prospective pupils by preventing discrimination against them at school for a reason relating to their disability. There are two key duties.

·        Not to treat disabled pupils less favourably; and

·        To take reasonable steps to avoid putting disabled pupils at a substantial disadvantage (the reasonable adjustment duty.)

LEAs and Schools are under a planning duty set out in Section 28 of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), 1995 to prepare accessibility strategies and accessibility plans respectively. 

Accessibility strategies and plans must be in writing.  LEAs and schools are under a duty to review strategies and plans and revise them in necessary.  Ofsted inspections of LEAs and schools will appraise the LEA’s and schools’ discharge of responsibilities to prepare, revise, review, and implement its strategy or plan and, in respect of an accessibility plan, the publication of the plan. 

The Planning Duty upon the LEAs under the Disability Discrimination Act, 1995 as amended by the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act, 2001 requires LEAs to take a strategic approach to planning for increased disability access to all maintained schools within their area through the implementation of an authority-wide strategy in partnership with the schools within their area. The three key strands of the planning duty for both LEAs and schools are as follows:

·        Improving the physical environment of the schools for the purpose of increasing the extent to which disabled pupils are able to take advantage of education and associated services provided or offered by schools;

·        Increasing the extent to which disabled pupils can participate in the school curriculum; and

·        Improving the delivery of information to disabled pupils which is already provided to pupils who are not disabled.

“Education and associated services” is a broad term that covers the whole life of the school.  It covers not only the curriculum, teaching and learning but school clubs and activities, break and lunch times, school sports, school policies, interaction with peers, assessment and exam arrangements and preparation of pupils for the next phase of education.

There are regulation making powers in sections 28D(2) and (9) to prescribe the time period of the strategies and plans.  Draft regulations prescribe an initial period of three years for LEA strategies and school plans, which will start from April 2003.  Further regulations will be made prescribing the time period for future plans.  This does not prevent LEAs and schools from planning for longer time periods.