Accessible School Open Days: What Disabled Families Need Before They Arrive

An open day is the one day a school is judged by people who have never been there. For a family with a disabled child, or a disabled parent bringing a child, it is also the day they find out whether the school's accessibility plan is a document or a place. Most of that judgement is made before they arrive, on the website, and most schools leave it to a postcode and "ample parking".

Two duties on the same day

The Equality Act 2010 reaches an open day twice. Prospective pupils are covered by Part 6, which applies to admissions as well as to pupils already on roll, and by the Schedule 10 duty on every school to have an accessibility plan. The Department for Education's advice for schools describes the plan's three strands: increasing access to the curriculum, improving the physical environment, and improving the delivery of information to disabled pupils. The visiting parents, grandparents and siblings are members of the public, covered by Part 3 as users of a service, and the EHRC Services Code applies to them exactly as it does to a museum: an anticipatory duty to make reasonable adjustments, covering parking, entrances, steps, toilets and accessible-format information. What a school accessibility plan must cover goes through the plan itself; this article is about the day.

What families look for first

The Euan's Guide 2025 Access Survey found that 42% of disabled people avoid a venue altogether when they cannot find its access information, and 47% find that information hard to locate before leaving home. Parking (64%) and navigation (56%) were the most common barriers. On a school site those are the same questions in a different order: can we park near the entrance, is the way in level, where are the toilets, how far is it between the buildings on the tour, and will anyone know we are coming.

What to publish before the day

Treat the open day route as a service you are offering, and describe it as the code's physical-features list would: the Blue Badge bays and the distance and surface from them to the entrance being used; a setting-down point if the bays are far away; the step-free entrance by name, with the door and who is inside it; the lifts and which floors they serve; the accessible toilets on the route and whether a key is needed; the quiet room; the hearing loop in the hall; where the tour goes and which parts of it are stepped, with the alternative for each. Then say who to contact, and give a real name.

Two things make the difference between a paragraph and an adjustment. The first is a route rather than a list: the family wants to know the whole journey from car to hall is step-free, not that a ramp exists somewhere. The second is honesty about the site. A listed building with a stepped library is not a failure; saying nothing about it is. For the rooms a wheelchair cannot reach, a 360 view on the same page is a reasonable alternative method of access in the code's own terms.

On the day

Open days are run by sixth-formers with lanyards and a printed plan. Give them the same map the families have, on their own phones, so the directions they give match. Put the day's changes on it: the car park that filled by ten, the entrance closed for the choir, the science block tour that moved. A family that booked help should be met at the bay they were told to use, by someone who knows their name.

After the day

The open day route is the accessibility plan's physical-environment strand made visible, which is why it belongs on the website all year, in the admissions pack and in the letter for the assessment morning, not only in September. Open day wayfinding covers the signage and the QR codes; the Signposted schools template carries every building, car park and door with the step-free route between them, and its accessible wayfinding features, built to WCAG 2.2 AA, mean the page works for the parent using a screen reader as well as the one holding a toddler.

General information, not legal advice. The DfE advice and the EHRC code are the documents to quote.

Questions people ask

Does the Equality Act apply to visiting parents, or only to pupils?

Both. Pupils and prospective pupils are covered by Part 6 of the Act and by the Schedule 10 accessibility plan duty. Parents, grandparents and other visitors on an open day are members of the public receiving a service, covered by Part 3, with the same anticipatory duty to make reasonable adjustments.

Does a school need to publish its accessibility plan?

Maintained schools must publish it under the School Information (England) Regulations; independent schools must have one and are inspected on it. Either way the open day is where families test whether the plan is real.

Our site is historic and not level. What should we say?

Say so, and say what the alternative is: which buildings are step-free, where the lift is, which parts of the tour can be seen on a 360 view instead. Honesty before the visit is a reasonable adjustment; silence is a barrier.