Disability Equality Scheme
Bankside Primary School
Disability Equality Scheme
2007- 2010
Introduction
Bankside Primary School welcomes its general responsibilities under the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 and resultant Equality Duty to have due regard to the need to:
- Promote equality of opportunity between disabled and non-disabled people
- Eliminate discrimination that is unlawful under the Disability Discrimination Act
- Eliminate harassment of disabled persons that is related to their impairments
- Promote positive attitudes towards disabled people
- Encourage participation by disabled people in public life
- Make reasonable adjustments to take into account a disabled persons impairment, even where that involves treating the disabled person more favourably than other people
This scheme sets out the steps The Governing Body will take, that will result in improved outcomes for disabled pupils, parents/carers and staff in all aspects of school life.
School Ethos, Vision and Values
The Bankside Best Commitment
“At Bankside Primary School we expect the best from everyone and for everyone”
We are committed to ensuring equality of education and opportunity for disabled pupils, staff and all those receiving services from school.
We aim to further develop a culture of inclusion and diversity in which people feel free to disclose their disability and to participate fully in school life.
Our admissions policy does not discriminate against disabled pupils.
The achievement of disabled pupils will be monitored and we will use this data to raise standards and ensure inclusive teaching. We will make reasonable adjustments to ensure that the school environment is as accessible as possible.
We will not tolerate harassment of disabled people with any form of impairment.
Bankside Primary School will actively work towards reducing barriers created by the world we live in, that may prevent or limit disabled people from enjoying the same opportunities as people who are not disabled.
Our equality of opportunity policy states, “The school will not discriminate against anyone on grounds of their racial or ethnic origin, gender, religious beliefs or disabilities.”
The same ethos is demonstrated in our Race Equality Policy.
Definition of Disability
The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 defines a disabled person as someone who has a ‘physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long term effect on his/her ability to carry out normal day to day activities.’
According to the Disability Discrimination Act, an impairment is to be treated as affecting the person’s ability to carry out normal day to day activities, only if it affects one or more of the following:
Mobility, manual dexterity, physical co-ordination, continence, ability to lift, carry or otherwise move every day objects, speech, hearing or eyesight, memory or ability to concentrate, learn or understand the perception of the risk of physical danger.
The Disability Discrimination Act 2005 has extended the definition of disability to include people with HIV, multiple sclerosis and cancer from the point of diagnosis. Individuals with a mental illness no longer have to demonstrate that it is “clinically well- recognised” although the person must still demonstrate a long term and substantial adverse affect on his/her ability to carry out normal day to day activities.
How People with a disability have been involved in the Scheme
Bankside Primary School recognises the importance of involving disabled people fully in the development of our Disability Equality Scheme. We have involved disabled people in the following ways:
Disabled Pupils:
We have identified our disabled pupils and approximately 1% of our children have a disability.
We have listened to some of their views informally.
Key issues identified by our pupils were:
1. Personal care plans for lunchtime take time to implement reducing time spent outside with friends in the playground.
2. Participation in after school clubs
Disabled Staff:
Approximately 3% of our staff has a disclosed disability.
Key Issues
1. CPD opportunities
2. Reasonable adjustments in terms of role and responsibilities
Disabled Parents/Carers:
At present we are unaware of specific numbers of disabled parents/carers. We will look at our information gathering procedures to find out the following information.
Key Issues
1. To provide opportunities to identify disabled parents/carers
2. To meet with disabled parents/carers and identify any barriers in coming to our school
3. To identify reasonable adjustments that can be made.
Disabled Members of our Local Community
Our school building is used by:
1. Mosque classes in the evening during the week and on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
2. Parent Groups during the school day
There are no disabled members of the community attending these classes at the present time.
Key issues
1. To establish a system of procedures with local community groups using our building, so we can identify disabled people as they join the groups and establish their individual requirements
2. To identify any barriers in using our facilities
3. To listen to suggestions of reasonable adjustments
At Bankside we have always tried to accommodate and make reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities. It has been custom and practice to discuss informally and formally specific individual requirements. For example, a member of staff always has inside playtime duties due to mobility issues.
Pupils have always been encouraged to participate fully in school life, including swimming lessons, residential visits and school trips. Reasonable adjustments have been made to accommodate this such as arranging a hoist at the swimming baths with an extra member of staff and establishing procedures with parents of children with asthma and diabetes so they have been able to attend residential trips.
Another reasonable adjustment we have made has included not excluding a child for hitting a teacher because of his special needs.
Disabled members of staff are members of the Disability Equality Steering Group. We intend to involve some pupils with a disability, on a more formal basis so they can attend and contribute their thoughts and ideas at group meetings.
The Disability Equality Steering Group has been involved in the completion of the Action Plan and will hold meetings to discuss it, to identify priorities and liaise with the appropriate people to implement it over the next three years.
How we will gather information to consider the effect our policies and practices have on disabled people
We recognise that our policies and practices may impact on disabled people and in particular on:
- The recruitment, development and retention of disabled employees
- On the educational opportunities available to and the achievements of disabled pupils.
We acknowledge that information gathered from a wide range of sources will be required in order to identify the actions which we need to take, to promote disability equality.
We will ensure in our action plan that information is gathered in relation to both employment and delivery of our services.
The processes we will use for gathering information to support, promote and monitor educational achievement for pupils with a disability will include:
Pupil Achievement
All the following assessment tools are used to determine pupil achievement and the next steps for pupil targets.
- School tracker
- Pupil conferencing
- Book scrutiny
- Observations
- Assessment for learning
- Assessment procedures
- Individual Educational Programmes
- Provision map
Learning Opportunities
Targets are set for pupils with a disability, with support from outside agencies such as:
- Mobility training team
- Educational Psychologist
- School Nurse
- Physiotherapist
- SEN Support Services
- Audiologist
- Visually Impaired Team
- Occupational therapist
Admissions/transitions and Exclusions
Our Admissions, transition and behaviour policies need reviewing to ensure that they comply with The General Duty.
Children with disabilities are not over represented in our exclusion figures. Reasonable adjustments are made within our policy guidelines for children whose behaviour is related to their identified special needs.
School Policies
We recognise that all our school’s policies may have an impact on the participation and outcomes for disabled pupils, parent/carers, staff and members of the school community. We have agreed a programme to review policies and their impact and this is contained in our action plan.
Our Action plan
We have produced a disability action plan to ensure that we fulfil our general and specific duties under the Disability Equality Duty.
Our existing accessibility plan outlines the steps we are taking to improve:
- curriculum access
- provision of information to disabled pupils
- physical access
We have now incorporated this plan into our overall Disability Equality Scheme Action Plan.
Reporting
Governors will review this Disability Equality Scheme annually in December.
We will report annually on the progress we make on promoting equality of opportunity for people with a disability. Our annual report will include details of:
- information we have gathered during the year
- how this information was used
- action points completed during the year and those that are ongoing
We will ensure that people with a disability are involved in this process.
Revisiting the Scheme
Our scheme will be reviewed, revised and evaluated
after a period of three years and people with a disability will be involved with the process. A new action plan will be produced, responding to issues identified through our impact assessment and included in our annual report.
Review Date December 2010
Senior Member of Staff Responsible Kathy Charles
Governor Responsible Ian Witham
Headteacher Sarah Rutty
