School governors and school governing bodies, as the legal body responsible for schools, have a duty to ensure that their schools adhere to the duties under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 2005. This page outlines the responsibilities of both the school governing body and the school itself in relation to the DDA and related legislation.

Governing body duties

Part 5A of the DDA 1995 requires school governing bodies to:

• promote equality of opportunity for disabled people: pupils, staff, parents, carers and other people who use the schools or may wish to; 
• prepare and publish a disability equality scheme to show how they will meet these duties.

This scheme and the accompanying action plans set out how the governing body will promote equality of opportunity for disabled people.

Part 4 of the DDA 1995 requires school governing bodies to plan to increase access to education for disabled pupils in three ways:

• increasing the extent to which disabled pupils can participate in the school curriculum; 
• improving the environment of the school to increase the extent to which disabled pupils can take advantage of education and associated services; 
• improving the delivery to disabled pupils of information that is provided in writing for pupils who are not disabled.

Schools� duties under disability discrimination legislation

The reasonable adjustments duty and accessibility plans

Under Part 4 of the 1995 Act schools and LAs must not treat disabled students less favourably without justification and must make reasonable adjustments to ensure that disabled students are not disadvantaged compared to their peers.

Schools and local authorities must also plan strategically to increase access to school buildings and the curriculum over time. The Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 requires schools to produce an accessibility plan, detailing how they will do this.

For further information on Part 4 see the Disability Discrimination Act and special educational needs (SEN) duties document linked in the Attachments section.
 
The disability equality duty

The disability equality duty is a general duty, requiring all schools to have due regard to the need to: 

• promote equality of opportunity between disabled people and other people 
• eliminate discrimination that is unlawful under the DDA 1995 (as subsequently amended) 
• eliminate harassment of disabled people that is related to their disability 
• promote positive attitudes towards disabled people 
• encourage participation by disabled people in public life 
• take steps to meet disabled people�s needs, even if this requires more favourable treatment.

The disability equality duty includes an important duty to have regard to the need to eliminate harassment of disabled people that is related to their disability. Schools therefore need to tackle the bullying of children with SEN and disabilities as part of complying with this part of the general duty.

In addition to the general duty, schools also have a specific duty, requiring them to demonstrate how they are meeting the general duty. Effectively, the general duty informs schools of what they have to do; the specific duty sets out how schools have to do it and what they need to record as evidence of what they have done.

The main requirements of the specific duty are to:

• prepare and publish a disability equality scheme
• involve disabled people in the development of the scheme
• implement the scheme
• report on progress annually and amend where necessary.

It is important to note the key difference between accessibility plans and disability equality scheme � they are not the same thing. Schools should have separate plans for how they are going to (a) increase access to the school and to the curriculum over time and (b) demonstrate how they are meeting their disability equality duty. Further information is available in the DDA and SEN duties document linked in the Attachments section.

Guidance

DCSF guidance in this area includes:

• Bullying Involving Children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities: Safe to Learn- Embedding anti-bullying work in schools
• Implementing the Disability Discrimination Act in schools and early years settings

Both publications are available from the DCSF�s Online Publications for Schools website.

• Disability Discrimination Act and SEN duties
• Guidance on the Disability Equality Duty for Schools in England and Wales November 2006 : available from the archive of the Disability Rights Commission (now the Equality and Human Rights commission)

For more information about implementing the DDA go to the �Disability� section of Teachernet.