Disability Discrimination Act (DDA)
The SEN and Disability Act 2001 and the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 amended the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) requires schools:
- not to treat disabled pupils 'less favourably'
- to make reasonable adjustments to ensure that disabled pupils are not at a substantial disadvantage
- to draw up plans to show how, over time, they will increase access to education for disabled pupils (school accessibility plans)
- to comply with the Disability Equality Duty
- to prepare, publish, implement and report on a Disability Equality Scheme.
The Disability Equality Duty includes an important duty to eliminate harassment of disabled people that is related to their disability. Schools therefore need to tackle the bullying of children with SEN and disabilities as part of complying with this part of the Disability Equality Duty. Guidance on tackling the bullying of children with SEN and disabilities can be found here.
A short summary of schools' duties under disability discrimination law can be downloaded here. More detailed guidance can be obtained by following other links on this page, but you may find it helpful to read the summary first. Similar duties apply to local authorities.
Guidance entitled Implementing the Disability Discrimination Act in schools and early-years settings contains many examples of how schools have successfully included disabled pupils. The first link below (the DDA resource) contains details of how this guidance can be obtained by schools and voluntary organisations. The links below take you to various pages and downloads which include copies of some parts of the guidance.
Related pages and downloads
Last updated: 14 October 2008
