Equality Act 2010 and disabled pupils: A guide for governors and trustees

For some time now, disabled children and young people and children and young people with special educational needs 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. 

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.

The Department for Education has also published guidance for school governing boards on the board’s role and responsibilities supporting pupils with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities.

Read the Department for Education guidance here