After earlier having written an article on the Disability Equality Duty (DED) I was approached by the Head of a Primary School to ask if I could offer any help or advice for them in producing their Disability Equality Scheme (DES) which makes up part of that Duty. Well, as I’d already promised to try to help schools on accessibility related issues, I couldn’t say no even if I had wanted to, could I?

Obviously I can’t provide any definitive guidance to anyone as I’m not a legal expert, I’m not the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) and I don’t know the exact circumstances of any individual school. What I can do however is to look at what I would do if I was asked to produce a DES for an English Primary school.

Note that Local Authorities and Secondary schools must have their schemes produced by the 4th December 2006, but Primary Schools, Special Schools and Pupil Referral Units have until the 3rd December 2007 to complete theirs. But if you need to have it produced by the 3rd of December 2007, you’re still going to need to start looking at it now.

In this case, the first thing I would do would be to look to see if there are any schools who have already published their DES that I could base mine on.

Finding Resources

Unfortunately, searching for “disability equality scheme secondary school” didn’t bring me much luck. Either I’d need to improve my search terms or it could be that the disability equality schemes weren’t yet being published. Nevertheless, I did find a suggested template for schools produced by a LEA which might serve as a useful starting point.

This guidance includes various pieces of text which it suggests is indicative of actual wording the schools might like to include in their scheme. It’s important to note that simply reiterating text verbatim will not in itself help a school comply with the DED; they actually have to take notice of it and understand it as well. There is potentially a danger that schools will go for the quick option and just print what they are told to without examining their values — which won’t help them “do the duty”!

I’ve drawn together information from various sources (Cheshire Council’s Disability Equality Scheme (PDF), the Nottingham Schools Disability Equality Scheme Information Pack (DOC), the Greater London Authority’s Disability Equality Scheme (RTF) and the DRC’s document Schools and the Disability Equality Duty in England and Wales. From this, I’ve put together a skeleton of a document for Primary Schools and tried to identify the sort of things I’d include.

Note that all of this information is offered “as is”. This is how I would do it; that’s not to say I’d necessarily being doing it the right way. I’m not telling you to do it the same way that I would: I’d much prefer it if you made your own minds up and arrived at your own decisions, but you’re more than welcome to my thoughts on the matter.

What goes in it?

The DRC specifically advise what needs to be in your Disability Equality Scheme:

• A statement of how disabled people … have been involved in developing the Scheme
• Your arrangements for gathering information on the effect of your policies and practices on, in particular:
  • the recruitment, development and retention of disabled employees
  • the educational opportunities available to and achievements of disabled pupils
• Details of how you are going to use the information gathered … in reviewing the effectiveness of your Action Plan and preparing subsequent Schemes
• Your methods for assessing the impact of your policies and practices on disablility equality
• A plan of action — a list of action points that detail the steps that you are going to take to meet the general duty

Schools and the DED in England and Wales (DRC)

Right, have you got all that on board? Are we ready to begin?

No!! Stop there. You need to be…

Involving People With Disabilities

Have you involved disabled people in the production of this scheme? If you haven’t, then you have already specifically failed. Encourage participation by people with disabilities and disability groups, whether pupils, teachers, parents, support staff, school governors, or members of the local community to take part in the production of your scheme. If you aren’t doing this, then you might as well not bother with the whole thing because at best you’re paying lip service to the whole concept.

If you are worried you school is too small to give a reasonably representative sample, then the DRC again have some advice for you:

The school is concerned that they will not have a truly representative involvement process because the numbers and diversity of disabled people directly connected to the school are so small. The school decides to solve this problem by linking up with other primary schools in its area to work on the involvement aspect of their Schemes together.Schools and the DED in England and Wales (DRC)

The DRC also acknowledge that smaller primary schools need to take a different approach to larger schools with larger resources, and suggest that smaller schools could look at organising:

• meetings for staff, parents, and pupils in conjunction with other local schools
• social events for disabled children and or disabled parents in conjunction with other local schools — to hear the views of these groups in a more informal setting
• one off, targeted, or regular focus groups for staff, parents and carers and pupils

Schools and the DED in England and Wales (DRC)

If you have set up any disability panels, or have access to any, you may wish to ensure that not only to these feed information into your scheme but that they are directly involved with the production or approval of your scheme. If your scheme is actually produced by a panel made up of teachers, pupils and stakeholders in the local community — with appropriate disability representation from these groups — then it’s going to be a lot easier to demonstrate you’ve involved disabled people in the process, than if the document has just been knocked up by the Deputy Head over a weekend.

Right, I’m now going to assume that you have been involving people with disabilities, and that this is an integral part of the production of your Disability Equality Scheme. Now we’ll look at what we’ll put inside the damn thing.

Information Relating To Our School

Obviously, you might want to put the name of your school in here somewhere, whether it’s the “School Of Hard Knocks” or the “University of Life” or whatever.

Explain what your school ethos is in terms of equality — obviously in this specific instance it is as it relates to someone with a disability but if you have an overall equality of opportunity policy, you could mention that here. Do you discriminate — whether for pupils or teachers — on the grounds of gender, sexual preference, religious beliefs or expression, ethnicity, age or disability? If you claim not to discriminate on this basis, explain what steps you take in order to ensure that no discrimination exists.

You don’t want to get sidetracked here though: if you’re a faith school and you have certain religious requirements, or alternatively if you prohibit the wearing of certain items of religious apparel (as in the highly publicised case over a classroom assistant wearing a veil), you don’t want to go into that here. This document is specifically about disability, so don’t wander off the point.

Explain what you understand by the term “disability” — take a definition from the Disability Discrimination Act if you like, such as:

a person has a disability … if he has a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.Disability Discrimination Act 1995

… although you might just want to tweak it so that it’s clear that you believe females can be considered to be disabled too…

You may wish to explain whether or not you use the social model of disability (hint: you should) which says that it is the constructs within our society that create barriers that limit people with disabilities, rather then the people themselves being inherently limited, and that it is therefore the responsibility of society to remove these barriers. You might also want to find a more coherent explanation of it than my garbled understanding!

As well as this, show an awareness — ideally one informed by the feedback you should have had by this point — of the current situation at your school. Acknowledge the things that you do well, and the things that you don’t do so well. Highlight those things that you are focussing on, while paying attention to what is reasonable to carry out given your resources.

For example, it’s unlikely that it will be appropriate for every member of staff in a small school with a limited budget, to receive specific and intensive training into the needs of people with disabilities, but it may well be appropriate for a few key members of staff to be identified and given this training — and then for them to feedback their knowledge to others.

The General Duty

You are going to need to cover this to some degree. The specific duty that you’re carrying out by producing your DES and your action plan explains how you’re going to carry out the general duty, so you will need to explain what the general duty actually is.

The basic requirement for a public authority when carrying out their functions is to have due regard to do the following:

• promote equality of opportunity between disabled people and other people
• eliminate discrimination that is unlawful under the Disability Discrimination Act
• eliminate harassment of disabled people that is related to their disability
• promote positive attitudes towards disabled people
• encourage participation by disabled people in public life
• take steps to meet disabled people’s needs, even if this requires more favourable treatment

Schools and the DED in England and Wales (DRC)

Feel free to expand on this in more detail. You may in particular want to give examples of how you would take steps to meet disabled people’s needs, even if this requires more favourable treatment, and why this is all necessary.

The DRC’s guidance for schools in England and Wales will again prove an invaluable resource here:

21 per cent of disabled people aged 16-24 have no qualifications whatsoever, compared to 9 per cent of non-disabled people of the same age — a 12 per cent gapSchools and the DED in England and Wales (DRC)

As well as for providing examples of more favourable treatment:

A primary school notices that lunch and break times can be difficult for some of its disabled pupils, including pupils with Autistic Spectrum Disorders and Attention Deficit Disorders. To support and help the pupils who find it difficult to stand in a queue for reasons related to their disability, the school has put in place a priority card system. These pupils are given a green card which allows them to go to the front of the queue and get their food first.Schools and the DED in England and Wales (DRC)

Something like this may be suitable for your school. I’m not convinced it would have been suitable for the schools I was at — anyone receiving favourable treatment in this manner, regardless of the reason, would have been tormented by the other children who would have felt that the system was unfair. However, that’s not to say that this would be the case today: properly explained and set up, a scheme like this might be of benefit in your school.

Don’t forget however, this doesn’t just apply to pupils! You may wish to offer:

…telephone or email appointments or home visits to disabled parents and carers that might find it difficult to get to the schoolSchools and the DED in England and Wales (DRC)

I mention these as examples of “more favourable treatment” because anything that involves more favourable treatment may be associated with unfairness, so where you do need to offer more favourable treatment in some cases, then it might help to tackle these issues head on by including them in your DES, explaining why you’re carrying them out and why instead of being unfair, it is actually making the situation fairer.

But your disability equality duty doesn’t just apply to pupils and staff, either:

Are governing body proceedings accessible? Are there clear links between parents and the governing body? How do you ensure people are aware of how the governing body contributes to the life of the school?, How does the governing body consult with parents/carers? Do you encourage disabled parents/carers/community members to become governors?Nottingham Schools Disability Equality Scheme Information Pack

When encouraging participation by disabled people, it must be clear that this is voluntary: children and staff must not be coerced into taking part if they don’t wish to, as this could clearly be seen as singling them out because of a disability. Make it easy for pupils and staff to have their voices heard in meetings, on the school council and so on, but don’t put pressure on anyone to take part.

Our Research

Explain what you’ve done to involve disabled people in producing your disability equality scheme: what you’ve done to seek out their advice and opinions, the methods you’ve provided for them to contact you and so on.

Explain what you’ve actually done with this information now that you’ve got it, what conclusions you’ve arrived at — and how you’ve arrived at them. You’re going to need to explain what you’re actually going to do later, in your Action Plan, but we’ll come to that in good time.

You also need to explain how — and in what timescales — are you going to review the impacts of your policies, in order to tell whether your disability equality scheme and/or Action Plan need to be amended. Some things can be done on a continuing basis — feedback from pupils, staff, or specific bodies you’ve set up for this purpose; other reviews such as questionnaires, meetings with key stakeholders etc could be carried out at specific times.

Recap

What needs to be included?

• A statement of how disabled people … have been involved in developing the Scheme
• Your arrangements for gathering information on the effect of your policies and practices on, in particular:
  • the recruitment, development and retention of disabled employees
  • the educational opportunities available to and achievements of disabled pupils
• Details of how you are going to use the information gathered … in reviewing the effectiveness of your Action Plan and preparing subsequent Schemes
• Your methods for assessing the impact of your policies and practices on disablility equality
• A plan of action — a list of action points that detail the steps that you are going to take to meet the general duty

Schools and the DED in England and Wales (DRC)

Okay then: by this stage we’ve carried out research to identify our current position and have explained how we’ve done that and what we’ve done with it; we’ve explained how we’re going to assess the impact of our actions and review the scheme in future, and we’ve described how disabled people have been involved in developing the scheme. By my reckoning, that just leaves us with the Action Plan.

The Action Plan

This is actually quite simple.

Clearly set out the steps you intend to take over the next three years in order to meet the General Duty. Your first action plan will likely need to explain how you intend to set up or start various activities, such as disability forums, whereas if these are already established you won’t need to refer to them in as much detail.

The action plan should be formed from a combination of the feedback you’ve received, from your strategic planning and should above all be practical.

Your action plan should therefore be a series of measurable bullet points that at the end of three years you should be able to review and state with confidence whether or not you have achieved them. And you should have achieved them — unless it was unreasonable (or became unreasonable) to do so.

The DRC have recommended that you set specific targets to reduce the educational attainment gap between disabled and non-disabled pupils, and in order to set realistic targets of this nature, you will obviously need to have carried out enough initial research to identify the current attainment gap and measures you can take to remove barriers that prevent disabled pupils from achieving their full potential.

Depending on the size and makeup of the school, it may also be appropriate to look at targets for employment within the school — this may not be possible for a small primary school but should certainly be considered at larger schools.

Make sure your action plan covers the following points:

• How you plan to give disabled people a voice
• How you are going to react to the feedback from disabled people
• How you plan to deal with the priorities identified by the disabled people consulted in the scheme
• How you are going to keep disabled people involved in your scheme and your policies throughout its life cycle
• The specific policies are you going to set up to ensure equality of opportunity
• How your anti-bullying policy handles matters relating to disability
• How your governing body handles matters relating to disability — whether there is anyone with any experience of disability on the governing body, and what the governing body need to do
• What were the barriers to equality of opportunity your research identified and how you intend to remove them
• How you intend to promote positive attitudes towards disability
• How you are going to assess whether or not your policies are helping you achieve equality of opportunity
• When and how you are going to review your policies

Bits and Pieces

When deciding who should be responsible for your Disability Equality Scheme, ensure that it is someone senior. It needs to be someone with sufficient authority to ensure that your DES is enacted properly &mdash such as a Head or Chair of Governors. You may also want to ensure that the DES has been directly approved by a disability forum that you have set up or already have access to.

The day to day enactment of your scheme may however be carried out by someone else — ideally by someone with specific expertise in this area — provided that they are sufficiently backed up by the senior person who is responsible.

If you want more in-depth information on what to do, I’d suggest that you start with the Schools Guidance for England and Wales from the DRC, as this pretty much covers your responsibilities for the Disability Equality Duty.

From there, move onto the “Implementing the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) in schools and early years settings” resource pack from the Department for Education and Skills which apparently:

explains the main duties under the DDA and how to make reasonable adjustments in schools. It also addresses how to improve disabled access using school plans and local education authority strategies. A future section will be added on implementing the Disability Equality Duty in schools…One copy can be ordered free of charge for any school, voluntary or disability organisation in England.DRC Newsletter

.

… and can apparently be ordered through TeacherNet. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you whether or not it’s any good, as not being a school, voluntary or disability organisation, I’m unable to get a free copy. Does anyone have a spare? However, if it’s free, you might as well give it a go…

You might also like to subscribe to the DRC newsletter yourself.

If on the other hand, you’re looking for something more like a template that you can just type your information into, then I’d suggest you take a look at the Disability Equality Scheme Information Pack for Nottingham Schools, but please bear in mind that you cannot simply regurgitate someone else’s work — the whole point of the disability equality duty is that you’ve actually got to carry out the research yourself to see what is important to the disabled people you are interacting with.

After all, what is it you say in schools?

When you copy, you are only cheating yourselfThe Teacher’s Plagiarism Motto