Accessibility Policy and Plan

Policy details

Date created - September 2023

Date reviewed and updated - October 2025

Date approved by governors

Next review date - October 2026

Contents

Policy details        1

Contents        1

Vision and Values        2

Legislation and guidance        2

Involvement and Consultation        3

Accessibility by design        3

Accessibility Plan        4

Curriculum        4

Physical Environment        4

Access to information        5

Vision and Values

Co-op Academy Brierley is committed to ensuring equality of education and opportunity for all -

including students, staff and all those involved in the school community. We aim to develop a

culture of inclusion and diversity in which people feel free to disclose their disability, are proud

of their identity and are able to participate fully in school life.

We have high expectations of all our students and aim to offer teaching throughout the

school which enables our students to become as confident, resilient and independent as possible.

Co-op Academy Brierley, we believe that diversity is a strength, which should be respected and

celebrated by all those who learn, work and visit here.

Legislation and guidance

The Equality Act 2010 replaced all existing equality legislation, including the Disability

Discrimination Act. This document meets the requirements of schedule 10 of the Equality Act 2010 and the Department for Education (DfE) Guidance for schools on the Equality Act 2010.

The Equality Act 2010 defines an individual as disabled if he or she has a physical or mental

impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ adverse effect on his or her ability to

undertake normal day to day activities.

Under the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Code of Practice, ‘long-term’ is

defined as ‘a year or more’ and ‘substantial’ is defined as ‘more than minor or trivial’. The

definition includes sensory impairments such as those affecting sight or hearing, and long-term

health conditions such as asthma, diabetes, epilepsy and cancer.

Schools are required to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ for students with disabilities under the

Equality Act 2010, to alleviate any substantial disadvantage that a disabled student faces in

comparison with non-disabled students. This can include, for example, the provision of an

auxiliary aid or adjustments to premises.

Schools are required under the Equality Act 2010 to have an accessibility plan. The purpose of

the plan is to:

• Increase the extent to which disabled students can participate in the curriculum
• Improve the physical environment of the school to enable disabled students to take better

advantage of education, benefits, facilities and services provided

• Improve the availability of accessible information to disabled students.

Involvement and Consultation

Co-op Academy Brierley works closely with the Local Authority and in partnership with external agencies and support services to ensure that all of our current and future students can access the full range of educational provision that we have to offer.

Where appropriate we will seek specialist advice to inform the planning of reasonable adjustments, but most reasonable adjustments can be resolved within the school setting. We have access to and support from various NHS professional services, with supervision from the NHS Inclusion nursing service on site weekly and other services visiting, including consultants holding clinics within school. This enables the students to attend with minimal disruption to their school day and in a familiar environment.

Feedback from parents/carers and student voice is taken seriously and is welcomed.

Accessibility by design

Co-op Academy Brierley was purpose-built as a specialist SEND provision using DfE guidance, and as such was built under building regulations to meet the needs of its special needs population. The maintenance of this building is the responsibility of the Co-op Academies Trust.

Accessibility Plan

This Accessibility Plan relates to the key aspects of curriculum, physical environment, and accessible

information.

Curriculum

At Co-op Academy Brierley we value our students and their uniqueness. We will never let anything get in the way of our high aspirations for them.  

We provide our learners with an ambitious and inspiring, knowledge-rich curriculum filled with opportunities for new experiences, retrieval of prior knowledge and questioning of the world around them, to help pupils make connections in their learning. Our expert teachers offer irresistible learning experiences through predictable and highly scaffolded lessons in which communication and personal well being are core.

Show you care 

At Co-op Academy Brierley, relationships and restorative practice are at the core of our school and underpin school life for our children, their families and our staff team. Our ambition is to create a ‘Brierley Best’ learning experience for every child and to support them in achieving their ‘Brierley Best Self’.

We want to create a personalised learning experience for every child and we recognise this is achieved through supportive relationships with our families, nurturing relationships with our learners and the expert teaching of our passionate and dedicated staff.

We want to work with our children restoratively, building trusting and predictable relationships which offer high challenge and high support. Every learner is actively taught ‘Brierley Best behaviour’ expectations for different situations and supported to repair relationships, understand how to keep themselves safe using a total communication approach.

We want emotional and physical well being to be integral to the planning and delivery of every learning session, with Physical Development and Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED) woven through our curriculum. to ensure every learner has a voice, feels safe and builds their independence towards adulthood.

We want every moment at Brierley to be a learning moment and our timetables are carefully structured to support learners emotional regulation, well being and readiness for learning. We are developing all environments in school to engage our learners interests and physical literacy including; the Brierley Farm and Gardens, Sports and sensory integration resource (rebound, sensory integration rooms, outdoor sensory playground) and our learners nurture in nature through our Forest school.

We value and support our learners in the context of their families and communities and we want Brierley Best for all our families which is achieved through strong daily communication with class teachers and outreach support from our pastoral team.

As a brand new school, we are designing our bespoke curriculum as a school team, with staff at every level within the academy contributing to the design process and holding the developmental needs of our pupils at the forefront of this process.

Physical Environment

At Co-op Academy Brierley we will seek to improve and maintain access to the physical environment of the school, adding specialist facilities as necessary – this includes the provision of specialist equipment to enable access to education.

Any proposed change to the physical environment has regard for building accessibility, furniture, signage and resources, including ICT.

We also:

• Ensure that facilities are available for students with sensory impairments, e.g. certain internal signage uses symbols and objects of reference.
• Provide sufficient disabled parking near the main entrance.
• Provide hygiene rooms with facilities including hoist, changing table, shower and sluice.
• Equip our school minibus to enable all students to participate in off-site activities, including wheelchair users.
• Strive to ensure that no student is excluded from school due to their disability or difficulties.
• Have effective emergency and evacuation procedures in place, including fire lifts and PEEPS.

Access to information

We also aim to improve the availability of accessible information to students, staff, parents and visitors with disabilities by;

• Having an admissions policy which gives equal rights to all potential applications regardless of
• ability or disability.
• Focusing on using appropriate communication that meets individual needs with students and parents.
• Circulating Education, Health & Care Plans and other plans to all appropriate staff members.
• Maintaining close links between agencies in order to receive advice and support our students and their families.
• Having an accessible website.