Children with Disabilities or Specific Requirements

Today, mainstream schools educate numerous children with specific educational needs or disabilities. For some time it has been enshrined in our domestic law that children with such needs should not be discriminated against and have the right to be treated fairly. Every child has the right to an inclusive education.

The Legal and Regulatory Requirements

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child applies to all children and sets out basic entitlements and rights for example;

Article 12 – the views of the child should be taken into account. Along with The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with a Disability, the Conventions also set out specific rights for disabled children underscoring promoting equality of treatment and more specifically, Article 24- Education requires that children with disabilities are entitled to be educated within an inclusive educational system, receive support accommodating individual requirements to facilitate an effective education and so to maximise academic and social development.

Article 7 specifies that the best interests of the child must be a primary consideration and Article 9 requires that children with disabilities have equal access, without barriers, within a school to the physical environment including communication, information and technology.

The various rights and entitlements under these conventions underpin our domestic legislation in the areas of special educational needs. The most recent legislation is the Children and Family Act 2014 (“the 2014 Act”) which places schools under a duty to make arrangements for supporting children with medical conditions and in meeting this duty schools must have regard to the statutory guidance – Supporting Pupils at School with Medical Conditions. Further to this there is additional provision in relation to children with a disability defined under The Equality Act 2010 ”…a physical and mental impairment that has a substantial long term and negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities”. The relevant part of this Act is that schools must have reasonable adjustments in place to prevent children with disabilities being treated differently or at a disadvantage to other children. Further children with disabilities must not be victimised, harassed or discriminated against.

The 2014 Act also introduces Education, Health and Care Plans. These plans have come into place in September 2014 and will make a statutory assessment of that child’s special educational needs then also communicating with the relevant health and social care teams to bring all the information together into one plan. The difference between a statement and an Education, Health and Care plan are overall family centred, gathering information from all services involved at the point of referral. The aim is to help improve outcomes and this will replace Statements of Special Educational Needs. Children who currently already have a statement will go through the transition process to achieve an Education, Health and Care Plan.

Inclusive Practice

It is our duty to children with disabil