SENDO is successful in promoting anti-discriminatory practice as the code of practice makes it unlawful for bodies responsible for the provision of education and other associated services to discriminate against disabled pupils and prospective pupils. SENDO makes it illegal to treat disabled people less favourably for a reason related to their disability: to make reasonable adjustments’, to ensure, where reasonable, education is fully accessible to disabled people and to ensure victimisation does not occur. The ‘reasonable adjustment’ duty is both an anticipatory and reactive duty.
SENDO is successful in promoting anti-discriminatory practice as it was the major push and support in achieving the aim of a society where all disabled people can participate wholly as equals to their non-disabled counterparts. SENDO highlights when discrimination can occur, even if unintentional, it gives practical guidance and encourages good practice in delivering an inclusive education service. SENDO successfully ensures that disabled students and prospective students have the same access to a high quality education service that is so readily available to pupils and prospective pupils who do not have any disabilities, therefore successfully promoting anti-discriminatory practice. By strengthening the rights of pupils with special educational needs to be educated in mainstream schools, SENDO is further successfully promoting anti-discriminatory practice as it gives disabled pupils the same rights as everyone else when it comes to the education system, giving both disabled and non-disabled pupils the same chance.
The following bullet points are purposes of the SENDO initiative and are examples of how SENDO successfully promotes anti-discriminatory practice:
- It makes it unlawful for schools to treat disabled pupils and prospective disabled pupils less favourably than other pupils in all aspects of school life.
- It places a duty on schools to make improvements in accessibility to help enable disabled pupils to have the same access to education as pupils who do not have a disability.
- It places a duty on schools to work towards making school life more accessible to disabled pupils. For example in terms of premises, the curriculum and written information.
- It makes it unlawful for general qualifications bodies to discriminate against disabled pupils in relation to the award of prescribed qualifications such as GCSE, GCE, AVCE, GNVQ and AEA to Entry Level, Basic and Key as well as vocational and vocationally-related qualifications.
SENDO promotes anti-discriminatory practice for disabled people in the education system so that they do not face any discrimination within it. The Disability Discrimination Act defines a disabled person as being someone who has a “physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long term adverse effect on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities”. Under SENDO special educational provision may be provided by:
- Schools;
- Schools in partnership with other external agencies;
- Schools and Education and Library Boards and Health and Social Services Trusts.
With the introduction of SENDO came the increase in rights for pupils with special educational needs to attend mainstream schools, this promotes anti-discriminatory practice as it means that both disabled students and non-disabled students are together in the same learning environment and no one is being secluded, both have the equal right to attend the school as SENDO promotes the equality of opportunity between both sides.
Since we are discussing how SENDO promotes anti-discriminatory practice, it is important to discuss what discrimination could be and what types of discrimination could occur if not for the introduction of SENDO. The following three terms are used to describe unlawful disability discrimination:
- less favourable treatment;
- failure to make reasonable adjustments; and
- victimisation
SENDO describes less favourable treatment as when a responsible body discriminates against a disabled person for some reason to do with their disability and treats them less favourably than someone without a disability. This means that under SENDO it is illegal for education providers to treat disabled pupils less favourably than other pupils for a reason relating to their disability, when it cannot be justified. This is another way in which SENDO successfully promotes anti-discriminatory practice.
SENDO states that responsible bodies are discriminating against disabled pupils if they fail to take steps if and when it is reasonable to ensure that when they are making arrangements for determining the admission of pupils to a school that disabled prospective students are not placed at a substantial disadvantage in comparison with those who are not disabled.
This means that unless they have a justification for not doing so, education providers have a duty to make reasonable adjustments so that disabled pupils are not at a substantial disadvantage compared to other non-disabled pupils. This anticipatory duty under SENDO places the responsibility on schools to anticipate the needs of pupils and to create an environment where pupils feel secure in disclosing any disability that they may have. This is a further way in which SENDO successfully promotes anti-discriminatory practice.
SENDO also further promotes anti-discriminatory practice by placing a duty on responsible bodies regarding the physicality of buildings. SENDO places a duty to plan for accessibility which means that the responsible body must be proactive in making improvements through planned changes over time. However it does not require that these changes to be made immediately.
In conclusion, it is very evident that SENDO has had much success in promoting non-discriminatory practice and that it is a great example of a recent initiative that can be credited with doing so. SENDO covers a variety of aspects in order to ensure that people with disabilities or special educational needs are not discriminated in any way within the education system.