Accessibility Strategy 2022 to 2025

Buckinghamshire Council continues to improve physical access and access to curriculum entitlement for children and young people with disabilities in its schools and other educational settings through:

• Encouraging all to share realistically high expectations for all children and young people.
• Meeting the needs of young people in their local mainstream school or nursery, where possible and appropriate to their needs.
• Encouraging multi-agency working to support local placements.
• Valuing diversity and encouraging all partners to recognise the benefits of having a community of children and young people. All of which have a wide range of needs and abilities within each school or setting, who value one another and the different contributions they can make.
• Increasing the confidence, skills and expertise of mainstream staff through a comprehensive training programme to meet the more diverse needs of children and young people. Bespoke training provides further professional development of teaching and support staff to develop high quality teaching, targeted and personalised provision. The training is delivered by a range of Buckinghamshire Professionals, including Specialist Teachers and Educational Psychologists.
• Embedding Ordinarily Available Provision guidance across schools and settings to support and ensure implementation of the graduated approach.
• Promoting early identification and intervention within schools, supporting them to have more scope to be proactive and creative in identifying solutions for their students. At times this may include providing funding for specialist equipment.
• Providing high quality advice and support to schools where needs are identified.
• Managing the Education, Health and Care needs assessment effectively.
• Supporting the emerging emotional needs of students, particularly in relation to school avoidance /non engagement in education.