Guidance on Disability in Schools: promoting Disability Equality in Schools
Requirements of schools under the DDA
The Disability Equality Duty
The Disability Equality Duty (DDA) requires schools to take a more proactive, more explicit, more involved and more comprehensive approach to promoting disability equality and eliminating discrimination.
More proactive
Schools need to move from a focus on an individual response to an approach that builds disability equality considerations in from the start and at every level of the school: at strategic, policy, management and classroom level.
More explicit
Schools have to be able to demonstrate what they have done and what they plan to do to improve opportunities and outcomes for disabled pupils, staff, parents and other users of the school.
More involved
Schools have to involve disabled pupils, staff, parents and others in the development of their scheme. Disabled people need to be involved from the very start and their involvement needs to inform the preparation, development, publication, review and reporting of the scheme.
In developing a scheme it may be helpful for schools to recognise that, by their very nature, the duties in the Disability Equality Duty (DDA) may have taken schools different distances on their journey towards promoting disability equality, for example: the duties inParts 3 and 4 are owed to the generality of disabled service users and pupils. This means that schools are already required to think ahead and anticipate what they may need to do for disabled service users and pupils. This in turn may mean that schools have developed a more proactive approach in these areas. The duties in Part 2 are owed to individual disabled staff and applicants; they do not of themselves require the same level of anticipation.
In respect of Part 4 duties, schools that are already making reasonable adjustments at a whole school level and have a well-developed accessibility plan may find that they are well on the way to meeting the Duty in respect of disabled pupils.
In developing their approach to the Duty, schools may find that they will need to do more work in respect of some parts of the DDA than others. It may help to bear this in mind as schools develop their scheme.
Guidance on Disability Equality Duty in schools
DED: summary of schools' duties
DED: DDA Part 1 — the definition of disability
DED: DDA Part 2 — schools' duties in relation to employment
DED: DDA Part 3 — duties in relation to provision of goods, facilities and services
DED: DDA Part 4 — schools' duties towards pupils
DED: DDA Part 5A — the Disability Equality Duty
DED: DDA — the Disability symbol
SEN Duties in Education Act 96
Equality and Human Rights Commission
Page created: 3 May 2007
