For some time now, disabled children and young people with special educational needs (SEN) have rarely been out of the headlines, sadly, and too often, for the wrong reasons. Multiple inquiries and many reports have identified problems in the system.
We know, from surveys carried out by the National Governance Association (NGA), that support for pupils with SEN and disabilities is a growing challenge for governing boards, with a significant rise (from 25% in 2022 to 37% in 2024) in the number of governors reporting this. At the same time SEN and disability is among their top strategic priorities.
One of the difficulties for governors of maintained schools and academy trustees is that they often encounter SEN and disability through individual examples of something that hasn’t gone well – for the pupil, the school, the parent, everyone involved. Quite often, this is also the way in which councilors and MPs get involved with families of children with SEN and disabilities.
At the heart of the matter is what we do for each and every child or young person. It is important to see how barriers can be anticipated and reasonable adjustments put in place before a disabled pupil is placed at a disadvantage, in line with the duties in the Equality Act 2010 (the Equality Act).
However, there are significant efficiencies to be achieved by incorporating individual reasonable adjustments into a more strategic approach, with changes to school policies and practice obviating the need for multiple one-off actions or risking a reactive response when things have already gone wrong. This is where governors and trustees come in, with their duties in relation to accessibility planning and the publication of information and objectives under the public sector equality duty and their role in providing strategic leadership, accountability and assurance, and strategic engagement. The responsibilities are threaded through what Ofsted is looking for in leadership and management, which includes:
Leaders have a clear and ambitious vision for providing high-quality, inclusive education and training to all. This is realised through strong, shared values, policies and practice.
Today the Council for Disabled Children is publishing a guide for school governors, academy trustees and others with responsibility for schools’ duties in the Equality Act. The guide is designed to support them in understanding how well their school is meeting their duties to disabled pupils. It sets out the individually owed duties and the more strategic duties; and it supports a conversation between executive leaders and governing bodies and boards of trustees about the evidence they need in order to understand how well the duties are being met in their school.
To illustrate how the duties work in practice, the guide uses examples from schools and from case law where claims of disability discrimination have gone to the Tribunal.
At the back of the guide is a set of checkpoints that schools can use to inform a discussion between senior leaders and their governing body or board of trustees. The checkpoints consist of a set of statements. These can be used informally, in conversation between school leaders and governors and trustees, to consider if and, if so, where the school may need to make improvements in meeting their duties to disabled pupils. Or, the checkpoints can be used as part of a more formal and more systematic review.
The headteachers, governors and trustees who helped us to test out the guide and, in particular, the checkpoints in the guide, all said that it would improve the conversation between school staff and their governing boards or boards of trustees.
The duties in the Equality Act have been in place since 2010, yet many of the recent reports have identified continuing poor outcomes. The same reports promote a vision of the future that is more inclusive, that anticipates the presence, participation and achievement of disabled pupils in all areas of school life and, beyond that, into adulthood.
This guide and the checkpoints are designed to support schools in meeting their duties to disabled pupils under the Equality Act and contributing to making this vision a reality.
Philippa Stobbs OBE
CDC Associate
Click here to be taken to the Department for Education website.