The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), as amended by the SEN and Disability Act 2001, places a duty on all schools and Local Authorities (LAs) to plan to increase over time the accessibility of schools for disabled pupils and to implement their plans. Schools are required to produce an accessibility plan for their schools and LAs are under a duty to prepare accessibility strategies covering the maintained schools in their area. Accessibility plans and strategies must be in writing. The nature and content of plans will depend on the size of the school.
The planning duty came into force in September 2002. Schools and LAs should have prepared and have in place, the first written plans and strategies by April 2003. The first plans and strategies will run for a period of 3 years from April to March 2006 though schools and LAs can also plan for beyond 2006 if they wish to do so.
Schools and LAs are required to plan for:
- increasing access for disabled pupils to the school curriculum;
- improving access to the physical environment of schools;
- improving the delivery of written information to disabled pupils.
Schools are required to make their plans publicly available. All schools have a duty to publish information about their accessibility plans in their governors' annual report to parents.
As part of their inspections, Ofsted will monitor schools' accessibility plans. Guidance entitled "Accessible Schools:Planning to increase access to schools for disabled pupils" (ref: LEA/0168/2002) is available from the Teachernet website. A suggested planning format for schools is attached to this page as a PDF document.
Training has been provided to help schools draw up accessibility plans. The training resources are available at a small cost for any schools who did not attend these sessions.