Disability Policy

The school has a legal duty to be non-discriminatory towards disabled students and to provide equal access and opportunity to the curriculum.

Aims:-

• Support the ethos of the school as a Christian (United Reformed Church) community which respects the rights of disabled students, to have equal access to the curriculum, extra-curricular and other services.
• Equally value and encourage all children.
• Foster positive attitudes towards disability within our community.
• Notwithstanding the above, and the school’s desire to enrich the lives of all our students by pursuing an inclusive policy towards all students which reflects the diversity of the outside world and our Christian values, the school places equal importance on ensuring that no student’s education and progress is impaired by the behaviour of another student.

To achieve our aims, the school has produced this Disability Policy. A Committee will be established with a brief to:-

1. Review the school’s Disability Policy and Accessibility Plan at least every three years.

2. Make recommendations with a view to improving the accessibility of its education to students or prospective students with disabilities by means of reasonable adjustments.

Admission to the School

• Depends upon prospective student meeting the school’s entry criteria to maintain and, if possible, to improve the educational and general standards for all its students, in keeping with the school’s mission statement.
• The school must feel reasonably sure that throughout the student’s time at Caterham, it will be able to educate and develop the prospective student to the best of his/her potential and in line with the general standards achieved by the student’s peers.
• The school policy is to apply these criteria to all students and potential students, regardless of any disability of which it is made aware by parents. The school has a legal obligation to make reasonable adjustments not to put any disabled student or potential student at a substantial disadvantage compared with other students who are not disadvantaged because of disability.
• Caterham School requires parents to inform the school in respect of the disability of a prospective student in the relevant section of the application form.
• In assessing any student or prospective student, the school may take such advice and require such assessments e.g., Educational Psychologist’s report, and recommendations as it regards as appropriate.
• With prior notification of disability, supported by the recommendation of an Educational Psychologist’s report, the school may allow some extra time in the entrance exam for prospective students with a disability.

Physical Access

Under the legislation we are not required to remove or alter physical features.

• Parents should be aware that the school site covers a wide area with many old buildings of more than one storey and without lifts. Like many secondary schools, the school ‘policy’ of subject areas with designated classrooms, requires students to move around the site, necessitating the use of steps or stairs in buildings to access classrooms. Students with impaired mobility will therefore be somewhat disadvantaged by these problems.
• The school is addressing these issues as part of the buildings development and refurbishment programme but some substantial improvements cannot be achieved by reasonable adjustments short of major alterations at prohibitive cost to the school.
• The Accessibility Plan to meet the legal planning duties will seek to improve physical access within the constraints of local planning permission and the budgetary impact outlined above.

Education

• Staff will continue to be made aware of students with Disability or Special Educational Needs (by the Head of Special Educational Needs, the Health Centre or Heads of Year/Head of Boarding).
• Staff will continue to be made aware of strategies to make “reasonable adjustments” within the classroom so as not to place disabled students at a substantial disadvantage in accessing the curriculum. Such strategies will be included in Departmental Handbooks.
• Staff will need to adapt their teaching to the learning patterns of all the students according to their abilities and needs. Such differentiation should be reflected in Departmental Schemes of Work.
• The implementation of reasonable adjustments to classroom management, teaching and expectations, should not prejudice the progress of other students, nor their Health and Safety (e.g. labs, workshops, sports equipment).
• The school, as an independent school, is not required under legislation to provide auxiliary support such as a classroom assistant, or auxiliary aids e.g. laptops or hearing loops.

Sporting & Recreational Activities

• The school will continue to provide equal access to all school activities for disabled students, within the constraints of the physical nature of the site, the budgetary costs, the Health and Safety implications and difficulties of supervision.
• Individual Risk Assessment and management strategies will be provided for disabled students engaged in school trips or visits.

Welfare Awareness