Disability Equality Scheme
Introduction
Westerton
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; and
·
take
steps to take account of a disabled person’s impairments, 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 & Values
At Westerton we are committed to ensuring equality of education and
opportunity for disabled pupils, staff and all those receiving services from
the school. We aim to 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.
This school uses the “social model” of disability, as the basis for its
work to improve equality for and tackle discrimination against disabled people.
This model says that it is the world and society that creates barriers that
limit or prevent disabled people from enjoying the same opportunities as people
who are not disabled.
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 adverse
effect on his or 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 everyday objects, speech, hearing or eyesight, memory or ability
to concentrate, learn or understand and 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.
Disability Equality in Education (DEE)
recommends that all pupils with SEN and those with long term medical needs be
treated as disabled for the purposes of the Act and for equality. This is in
addition to all pupils with long-term impairments, which have a significant impact
on their day-to-day activities.
How
Disabled People have been Involved in the Scheme
Westerton
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 and their parents:
We have identified our disabled pupils
We have ensured that we listen
to their views in SEN parent surgeries.
We have asked parents of children with a disability to give their views on how we
address the needs of their children.
Key issues
identified by our pupils and their parents were:
They would like us to increase the Knowledge that other pupil’s have of
their condition.
Disabled
staff:
We have asked all staff to identify any barriers in school that affect
them and how we can plan to overcome them.
No issues were identified by present staff
Disabled parents/carers:
We have given disabled parents/carers a questionnaire to identify any barriers and how we can improve the way we meet their needs.
No issues were identified
Disabled
members of the local community:
We have given a questionnaire to all groups who make use of our
facilities, asking them to identify any barriers and suggest reasonable
adjustments.
No issues were raised .
We will continue to ask the views of any new groups using the school
How we
have gathered information on the effect of our policies and practices 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 that information is gathered in relation to
both employment and the delivery of our services. The processes we use for
gathering information will include:
Pupil
Achievement:
We closely
monitor individual pupil achievement as part of school tracking and SEN procedures{see SEN and Inclusion Policy }
Target setting is carried out with careful consideration of individual ability.
Social
Relationships:
We consider that good social relationships
between disabled and non-disabled pupils are vital and these are monitored
through SEN systems. Provision maps show where individual intervention is
needed to enhance social skills of individual pupils.
Employing,
Promoting and Training Disabled Staff:
We try to ensure
that our staff are representative of the local community. We monitor the
promotion and training of all staff to ensure equality of opportunity.
How we
will assess the impact of our policies
We will monitor outcomes for Disabled
Pupils at least termly, as part of normal inclusion procedures .Parents are
able to feed back to SENCO at least once a term at SEN surgeries and parent
pupil consultation evenings.
We recognise
that all our school’s policies may have an impact on the participation and
outcomes for disabled pupils, parents/carers, staff and members of the local
community. We have agreed a programme to review the impact of policies and this
is contained in our action plan.
Our
Action Plan
We have
produced a disability equality 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 disabled people. 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 disabled people are involved in this process.
Revisiting the Scheme
Our scheme will be reviewed after a period of three years and disabled people will be involved in the process. A new action plan will be produced, responding to issues identified through our impact assessment and included in our annual reports.
