School Accessibility Policy 2022 - 2025

Aims

Schools are required under the Equality Act 2010 to have an accessibility plan. The purpose of the plan is to:

• Increase the extent to which disabled pupils can participate in the curriculum

• Improve the physical environment of the school to enable disabled pupils to take better advantage of education, benefits, facilities and services provided
• Improve the availability of accessible information to disabled pupils

At St John the Baptist Catholic Primary School we treat all pupils fairly and with respect. This involves providing access and opportunities for all pupils without discrimination of any kind.

St John the Baptist Catholic Primary School is committed to providing an environment that enables full access and participation in the school community for all pupils, staff and visitors with a disability, where this can be reasonably achieved, regardless of their physical, sensory, social, spiritual, emotional and cultural needs. The school has a culture of support and inclusiveness.

The plan will be made available online on the school website, and paper copies are available upon request.

Our school is also committed to ensuring staff are trained in equality issues with reference to the Equality Act 2010, including understanding disability issues.

Our school’s complaints procedure covers the accessibility plan. If you have any concerns relating to accessibility in school, this procedure sets out the process for raising these concerns.

We have included a range of stakeholders in the development of this accessibility plan, including pupils, parents, staff and governors of the school.

Legislation and guidance

This document meets the requirements of schedule 10 of the Equality Act 2010 and the Department for Education (DfE) guidance for schools on the Equality Act 2010.

The Equality Act 2010 defines an individual as disabled if he or she has a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ adverse effect on his or her ability to undertake normal day to day activities.

Under the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Code of Practice, ‘long-term’ is defined as ‘a year or more’ and ‘substantial’ is defined as ‘more than minor or trivial’. The definition includes sensory impairments such as those affecting sight or hearing, and long-term health conditions such as asthma, diabetes, epilepsy and cancer.

Schools are required to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ for pupils with disabilities under the Equality Act 2010, to alleviate any substantial disadvantage that a disabled pupil faces in comparison with non-disabled pupils. This can include, for example, the provision of an auxiliary aid or adjustments to premises.

Action plan

This action plan sets out the aims of our accessibility plan in accordance with the Equality Act 2010 (Appendix 1).

St John the Baptist Catholic Primary School comprises of a single storey building with two junior classrooms on a first floor accessed by stairs. The Care Suite has a disabled toilet and a disabled shower with a hoist and a changing bed. There is a second disabled toilet and shower for adults. The corridors are wide with good disabled access to the classrooms. Each classroom on the ground floor has a fire exit which is accessible by wheelchair, although some require assistance, depending on the child.

The site is mainly flat with a ramp to the main entrance and a ramp from a pedestrian gate to the playground. Access to the playing field is via a grass slope which is too steep for unassisted wheelchair access. The alternative routes through the fire exit at the end of the KS2 corridor.  Although the grass to the field is a slope, the incline is gentler, and a wheelchair can be pushed onto the main field.

Whilst the Equality Act does not require schools to change their premises, it does require long-term plans to be made for improving access to the premises. St John the Baptist Catholic Primary School is committed to providing all children with every opportunity to achieve their potential in every aspect of school life. When a request is received from parents or the Local Authority for a pupil to attend the school, professional advice from Support Services and other relevant professionals will be sought when necessary to enable an assessment of the individual’s needs to be made. This will include access to the various parts of the school and the requirements of the National Curriculum.

Parents and carers of pupils with disabilities will be consulted to identify and where possible, remove any obstacles to learning. Such obstacles could include physical, sensory, learning difficulties or emotional or social development as well as the learning environment experienced within the school.

The Staff at St John the Baptist Catholic Primary School value pupils of different abilities. The National Curriculum will be implemented to meet the specific needs of individuals and groups of children by;

• setting suitable learning challenges, including My Support Plans (MSPs)

• responding to children’s diverse learning needs,

• overcoming potential barriers to learning for individuals and groups of pupils, by accessing adult support, intervention programmes, tailored speech and language therapy programmes, use of Information and Computer Technology (ICT) and visual and sensory aids,

• ensuring individuals are able to access other curricular opportunities outside the National Curriculum such as school trips, after school clubs and special events such as sports days, visits by theatre groups.

Monitoring arrangements

This document will be reviewed every 3 years, but may be reviewed and updated more frequently if necessary.

Links with other policies

This accessibility plan is linked to the following policies and documents:

• Risk assessments
• Health and safety policy

• Equality information and objectives (public sector equality duty) statement for publication
• Special educational needs (SEN) information report
• Supporting pupils with medical conditions policy