Accessibility Plan

At Milestone Academy our values reflect our commitment to a school where there are high expectations of everyone. Children are provided with high quality learning opportunities so that each child attains and achieves all that they are able to. Everyone in our academy is important and included. We promote an ethos of care and trust where every member of our academy community feels that they truly belong and are valued. We work hard to ensure there are no invisible children here, recognising everyone’s uniqueness and success. We recognise learning in all its forms and are committed to nurturing lifelong learners. We are a safe academy, committed to improving children’s confidence and self-esteem. We know that safe and happy children achieve. 

This Accessibility Plan is drawn up in compliance with current legislation and requirements as specified in Schedule 10, relating to Disability, of the Equality Act 2010. Governors in conjunction with Leigh Academies Trust Executive are accountable for ensuring the implementation, review and reporting of progress of the Accessibility Plan over a prescribed period.

The Equality Act 2010 replaced all existing equality legislation, including the Disability Discrimination Act. The effect of the law is the same as in the past, meaning that “schools cannot unlawfully discriminate against pupils because of sex, race, disability, religion or belief and sexual orientation”.

According to the Equality Act 2010 a person has a disability if:

• He or she has a physical or mental impairment, and
• The impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.

Milestone Academy is committed to providing an environment that enables full curriculum access that values and includes all students, staff, parents and visitors regardless of their education, physical, sensory, social, spiritual, emotional and cultural needs. We are committed to taking positive action in the spirit of the Equality Act 2010 with regard to disability and to developing a culture of inclusion, support and awareness within the academy.

The school recognises and values parent’s knowledge of their child’s disability and its effect on their ability to carry out everyday activities and respects the parent’s and child’s right to confidentiality.

The Milestone Academy Accessibility Plan shows how access is to be improved for disabled pupils, staff and visitors to the school within a given timeframe and anticipating the need to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate their needs where practicable.

The Accessibility Plan contains relevant and timely actions to:

• Increase access to the curriculum for pupils with a physical disability and/or sensory impairments, expanding the curriculum as necessary to ensure that pupils with a disability are as equally prepared for life as the able-bodied pupils; (If a school fails to do this they are in breach of their duties under the Equalities Act 2010). This covers teaching and learning and the wider curriculum of the school such as participation in after-school clubs, leisure and cultural activities or schools visits, It also covers the provision of specialist or auxiliary aids and equipment, which may assist these students in accessing the curriculum within a reasonable timeframe;
• Improve and maintain access to the physical environment of the academy, adding specialist facilities as necessary – this covers improvements to the physical environment of the academy and physical aids to access education within a reasonable timeframe;
• Improve the delivery of written information to pupils, staff, parents and visitors with disabilities; examples might include hand-outs, timetables, textbooks and information about the academy and its events; the information should be made available in various preferred formats within a reasonable

The Milestone Academy Accessibility Plan relates to the key aspects of physical environment, curriculum and written information.

Whole academy training will recognise the need to continue raising awareness for staff and governors on equality issues with reference to the Equality Act 2010.

This Accessibility Plan should be read in conjunction with the following school policies, strategies and documents:

• Behaviour Management Policy
• Curriculum Policies
• Emergency Plan
• Health & Safety Policy
• Academy Performance Agreement
• Special Educational Needs Policy
• Teaching and Learning Policy

The Accessibility Plan for physical accessibility relates to the Access Audit of the Academy, which remains the responsibility of the governing body. It may not be feasible to undertake all of the works during the life of this accessibility plan and therefore some items will roll forward into subsequent plans. An accessibility audit will be completed by the academy prior to the end of each period covering this plan in order to inform the development of a new Accessibility Plan for the ongoing period.

The terms of reference for all governors’ committees will include the need to consider Equality and Diversity issues as required by the Equality Act 2010.

It is a requirement that the academy’s accessibility plan is resourced, implemented, reviewed and revised as necessary and reported on annually. Attached is a set of action plans showing how the school will address the priorities identified in the plan.

The priorities for the Accessibility Plan for our school were identified by:

• The Governing Body
• Principal and Senior Leadership
• Academy Business Manager
• Site Manager

A plan of the school buildings showing areas of accessibility is shown below. Please click on the images to view a larger version.

An Access Audit was carried out by the Principal and Cluster Estates Manager in May 2022. The following recommendation was made:

• Item: No actions required at this time
• Activity: No actions required at this time
• Timescale:No actions required at this time
• Cost: No actions required at this time

NOTE: In addition to this formal audit, as each student is taken on, we dynamically assess the accessibility of the building against the needs of that student in tandem with the needs of our other students and will make changes, if required.