To be miffed my sons school has no disabled access for parents evening

[Lifealittleboulder]

So my sons just started a new secondary and tonight we have meet the tutor and a presentation from the head of year. I have mobility issues but I don’t use a wheel chair at the moment, I do at times use a stick.
I called ahead just to check access and was told the first talk is down two flights of stairs and the second is up a further 2. I asked about lifts and was just told “there isn’t one”

that appeared to be the end of the convo so I shocked left it there…aibu to expect disabled parents to be able to attend?

I too am surprised that people are surprised.
The junior school I worked in was over 2 floors and when a pupil from an upstairs classroom broke their leg their class switched and went downstairs for 6 weeks.

Op the school ought to have alternative plans they can make, teacher comes downstairs to meet with you or a zoom call at a time convenient to you both.

The secondary my son is at hold 20 parents evenings over the year. Each year group gets a choice of 2 nights twice a year. This way everyone can use the hall and a few departments that naturally lead off from the hall (music, art and the it suite) as it’s all staggered. The hall is on the ground floor and there is step free access. Of the 5 secondary’s closest to me none of them have lifts.

“Hi, I’m the parent of x, and I’m physically disabled. Please can you arrange for the teacher to meet me in an accessible location, and give me access to the content of the lecture online?”

It’s no practical use moaning on MN. You need to ask the school to accommodate your needs directly.

I have a similar situation & our school offered to host me for parents evening in the hall. Usually each parent has to go round the whole school to see each teacher in their classroom. The instead offered to have the teachers come to me. I would speak with them for a solution

So do local children who are physically disabled have to be sent miles away to school?

My sons school internally is wonderfully accessible.

What lets them down is their disabled parking bays are completely unmonitored and unregulated, so you can never bloody get in one.

Private owned car park so there's no way of enforcing it either.

In Cambridgeshire, yes.

they get school transport provided. Taxis and the like.

Legally schools have to be disability friendly. I’d raise it with the head.

My limited experience of the inside of schools (mine, my children’s, and ones we looked round) didn’t involve lots of stairs. My primary school and my kids ones each had one “upstairs classroom” (v exciting) and everything else was on one level. There was a dining room with steps up from the outside but not inside, somehow.

Their secondary school does have classroom blocks with a couple of extra floor levels, but all the main areas where parents go - the main hall, various extra rooms for parent’s meetings etc - are all off a wide corridor on the ground floor, with ramp access. 1970s school building design. Even my much older high school had all the main hall type buildings on ground level and most of the classrooms too.

So to me it seems odd that main large rooms for talking to large parent groups aren’t on the ground floor. But of course I only have a tiny snapshot.

I'm sorry to read about this. I've heard so many things like this-people told there's no toilet/parking/dogs that are needed to help people with disabilities being banned/people with food allergies being told to stay away/just watched a clip of a hairdresser (Theresa, I think?) saying how people are rude about her hearing impairment.

Check out their accessibility policy on the school website.

Is there something in the pipeline or acess somewhere they haven't told you about.

How do they cater for disabled staff and students?

My kids primary has stairs. And a newish classroom block in the grounds with the classrooms upstairs without a lift so it must not be a rule about building things accessibly. The school actually burned down about 6 years ago and was rebuilt exactly the same. Half the classrooms upstairs and no lift.

My daughter’s high school is all stairs. The hall is up 10 stairs from the entrance and then it’s 4 different bits that attach in odd ways. There’s a lift that goes to some of the blocks but not all. It’s 4 flights of stairs in the main part plus the outbuildings all have tricky access. They’re actually in the middle of building a new building that will be accessible but this one is from the 60s.

Disabled children are placed at schools that are accessible (yes - agree it’s not fair at all) but it’s a huge problem for disabled parents. I’d expect them to think creatively though and would get back in touch with the head teacher, guidance lead or whoever makes sense in their structure.

are you in the uk op?
i am surprised
i know the school where dc went had a lift, i would have thought it illegal not to have access

Its frustrating but it does depend on the school, at the secondary school I went to the main buildings were built in 1598 there was an extension built in the early 1900s and another around 1950 and the final one just after I left, that did have a stair lift. But the rest of the building couldn’t be altered. We did have students with mobility needs so their lessons would all be on the ground floor.

Where they have events on that don’t actually need you to be in the auditorium etc they should ideally be bringing the staff to you.

Not if it can't be made accessible, and lots of school buildings can't.

There is a major shortage of money in this country which means lifts in schools are a low priority. A quarter of all pupils don’t have access to a qualified physics teacher.

You can look up exactly how tax money is spent and what that is on. If you can get your head round figures that are in the billions, you can see how much is needed and why things aren’t going very well.

I think old schools aren’t really set up to cope with disability. I know in our primary school there has been a patchwork approach to accommodate disabled pupils. So music and library came downstairs when students were younger but then they put in a lift as they moved upstairs p5+ classrooms are up a level.

This is to do with funding so if you’ve got a pupil who needs to be able to access x and you can build a case then you can get extra funding to pay for adaptations. Funding is limited so pupils who need access will be prioritised over parents.

Why did the conversation end there? Why didn’t you tell them about your disability and ask if any adjustments could be done so you can attend? It is obviously terrible they are not accessible but they’ve probably never needed to be however I would of said more

And if there is a lift, there also needs to be a person who is trained to use the evacuation chairs in the building to help anyone down the stairs in the event of the fire!

Many schools were built in the days when disabled students were just all put in special schools, regardless of disability, so accessibility was not considered. Lots of stairs is not uncommon - sometimes there aren't corridors on upper floors - just multiple staircases with 3/4 rooms on each landing. I know of schools where lifts have been put in, but others where there just is nowhere a lift could be put.

Disabled pupils - sometimes the trigger for getting a lift installed, sometimes encouraged to apply to a more accessible school. Failing that, timetable adjusted to put all their lessons on the ground floor. The school I taught in which got a lift had very few ground floor classrooms and no ground floor labs - fortunately it had a corridor so one lift was sufficient for the first floor.

Pupils with broken legs - if you're lucky, some lessons might get swapped to a more accessible room, but otherwise it tends to be a case of sending work to them in the library. Nowadays I guess some teachers might stream the lesson, having learned to do that in covid.

Parent meetings - usually the hall is reasonably accessible, and I would expect efforts to be made to ensure that you can get to that. "Meet the tutor" is often done in the tutor's classroom, so you get to see that, but I would expect that if the request were made, they would be willing for that tutor to do it in a ground floor room, or the hall where the first part of the evening was held. Did you say "in that case I won't be able to attend"? Failing that, I would expect that they would arrange for the tutor to give you call so that you do get to "meet" them.

Talk to them. Hopefully you can have a separate meeting to find out the info

I used to work somewhere that had no disabled access and the offices were on the second floor up two flights of stairs , no lift , chair lift etc . None of us were disabled but we were told if a building is a certain age it doesn’t have to provide access . Maybe this school is the same but I can’t see why something couldn’t be arranged for the teacher to meet you somewhere suitable

Thanks everyone! As I’m relatively new to disability I’m quite hesitant to argue, I think it’s a pride thing, I’d rather put myself in bed for two days than create a fuss, I need to learn to speak up for myself!

we went, there was another mum there on crutches (she’s on them full time) who had been told she wasn’t allowed to use the flat access and had to come in the front of the building. It is an old building and it does seem like what’s been added is more accessible but, the older parts just aren’t. I think now we’ve been once, I’ll a) be more prepared and b) speak up about steps. They seem to be flipping everywhere! Literally go in and there’s 4 steps up and then it fans off either side with 5 more steps to
go down the corridors. My son’s tutor room is up 4 flights with no lift or access.

now I know this, and that I am able to ask for online or accommodations- I’ll def speak up next time

Thanks!! X

I work in a school with no lifts, buildings from every decade from the 1960s onwards and so for meetings with parents with disabilities who use wheelchairs or mobility scooters we would go to them - the head vacates his office, as it is by Reception, the entry ramp and an accessible toilet. When students can’t use the stairs, we move the rooms around so they’re on the ground floor. One of my A Level students was in a wheelchair for months after surgery and she had all her lessons in the same corridor and classes were moved.
I am so sorry that you weren’t accommodated properly (at all) - do contact the head directly. You want to be able to go to shows, awards evenings and other parents’ meetings without this palaver in future.

I had this problem at my child's primary school when I was temporarily injured and unable to walk without crutches. My child's classroom was on the first floor, so the teacher came down to talk to me on the ground floor. That's probably less easy to organise with multiple teachers at senior school but I feel they should be cobbling something together for you, so to speak.