What a School Accessibility Plan Must Cover (and Where the Visitor Map Fits)

Every school in England and Wales must have an accessibility plan. It is one of the few documents the Equality Act names, it is reviewed by governors and sometimes by Ofsted, and it is often written in a hurry from someone else's template. This guide sets out what Schedule 10 requires, the three strands, and a worked example of the strand most schools find hardest to evidence: accessible information.

The duty

Schedule 10 of the Equality Act 2010 requires the responsible body of every school to prepare and implement an accessibility plan, and local authorities to prepare an accessibility strategy for their schools. The Department for Education's advice for school leaders (paragraphs 4.28 to 4.31) says the Act applies to maintained schools, academies and independent schools, that plans must be regularly reviewed and adequately resourced, that a plan may stand alone or sit inside another document such as the school development plan, and that Ofsted inspections may include it.

The three strands

A plan must aim to increase the extent to which disabled pupils can participate in the curriculum; improve the physical environment so disabled pupils can take better advantage of the education and services the school provides; and improve the availability of accessible information to disabled pupils. Most templates deal well with the first, reasonably with the second, and thinly with the third, because "information" is read as letters home in large print.

A worked example: the information strand

Take the physical environment and the information strand together. A school with a long drive, three car parks, a split-level site and a sports hall across the road has a physical environment that a wheelchair user, a parent with a pushchair and a pupil on crutches all need to understand before they arrive. The adjustments to the buildings take years and capital. The information about them takes a day, and the plan can say so:

• A campus map on the school website and in every letter and open-day confirmation, with the step-free entrances, the lifts, the accessible toilets and the Blue Badge bays marked as places with a photo of each door
• Step-free routes drawn between them, with an Avoid steps option, so a route from the visitor car park to the sports hall never includes the terrace steps
• Directions that can be read aloud, text that scales, a page that works with a screen reader, so a pupil with a visual impairment can use it alone
• A "new starter who needs step-free access" audience with its own welcome, to-do list and places, linked from the transition pack
• Reviewed each term by the SENCO and the site manager, with the date on the page

Written that way, the strand has measurable actions, named owners and dates, which is what reviewers look for. It also answers the anticipatory duty the school owes to visiting families on open day, under Part 3 of the same Act.

A template outline

1. Purpose and the legal basis (Schedule 10; the school's equality objectives)
2. The school's context: site, pupils, current provision
3. Strand one, curriculum: actions, owner, timescale, success measure
4. Strand two, physical environment: the access audit, the works planned, the interim adjustments
5. Strand three, information: formats, the campus map and routes, letters, website, the review cycle
6. Resourcing, monitoring and review dates; who approved it and when

Signposted was built with schools first; the schools page shows the open-day and admissions side, and the accessible wayfinding page the accessibility side. The visitor page itself is built to WCAG 2.2 AA, which also satisfies the public sector website regulations for the content a school publishes about its services.

Questions people ask

Does an independent school need an accessibility plan?

Yes. The DfE advice says the Act applies to maintained schools, academies and independent schools in England and Wales, and the planning duty in Schedule 10 applies to all of them.

How long does the plan run?

Plans are usually written for three years and reviewed each year. The DfE advice says they must be regularly reviewed and adequately resourced, and that Ofsted may look at them.

Does it have to be published?

It may be a standalone document or part of another, such as the school development plan. Publishing it on the website is the norm and the Equality Act objectives are expected to be published.