Playbook, private school
Three requests that arrive as one question about access
A parent writes that their child has a diagnosis and asks whether the school can accommodate it. Inside that sit a question about what the learning support department provides, a question about extra time in the entrance assessment, and sometimes a question about stairs. The first two are decisions about one child and cannot be settled here at all.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for accessibility requests holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The request is made by a parent about a child who has not joined, so an honest answer describes the provision and refuses to say whether it would suit this child, which is a judgement the head of learning support makes after reading a report.
- Arrangements in the entrance assessment, extra time or a separate room among them, are agreed against evidence the family supplies and settled before the assessment date rather than asked for on the morning.
- Independent school sites are frequently old houses with additions, so a step free route is genuinely partial: a ground floor teaching block and a boarding house up two flights are the same school and have to be described separately.
- A question about a condition, an allergy or medication is not an access request in a school at all, it belongs to the school nurse and a written care plan, and it must never be settled in a chat window.
How it arrives
- my son has dyslexia can you support him
- does my daughter get extra time in the entrance assessment
- is the school wheelchair accessible
- what does the learning support department actually do
- who do i send my childs educational report to
- my child has a nut allergy how do you manage that
What has to be indexed for this to work
| What the learning support department provides, written as provision | Who is in the department, what support in class and support out of it look like, whether anything is charged for, and how a child is identified for it. Describe the provision and never a suitability, because suitability is decided per child. |
|---|---|
| The arrangements process for the entrance assessment | What evidence you need, who it goes to, and the date by which it has to arrive. Families miss this deadline more than any other in admissions, and the assessment then runs without the arrangement. |
| A building by building account of the site | Which teaching blocks have step free access, where a lift exists, which boarding houses have accessible rooms, and how far the sports facilities sit from the main building. Accessible with nothing behind it is worse than saying the site is mixed. |
| Who receives each kind of request | The role for learning support, the role for medical matters, the role for assessment arrangements. Three destinations, because these are three different requests wearing the same words. |
The reply
I can tell you what our learning support department provides and how children are identified for it, which is on the learning support page [1]. What I cannot do is say whether the school would be right for your child, because that follows a conversation and a look at any reports you have, with the head of learning support [2]. If you are asking about extra time or a separate room for the entrance assessment, that is agreed in advance and needs evidence sent to admissions by the date on the page [3]. Leave me your name, an email and a line about what you need, and it goes to the right person.
It gives the provision, which is publishable, and refuses the suitability, which is not, in consecutive sentences so the refusal does not read as a brush off. Naming the arrangements deadline is the most useful thing in the reply, because that is the one that expires. And it takes the request rather than answering it.
Where it stops
The trigger. Any message describing a particular child's needs, diagnosis, medication or report, and any request for an arrangement in the entrance assessment.
This needs a person who can read the detail rather than me, and I cannot agree an arrangement. Leave your name, an email and what you would like considered, and admissions will pass it to the right department.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never say the school can or cannot meet a named child's needs, because that follows a report and a conversation with the head of learning support.
- Never confirm that extra time or a separate room has been granted, since that is agreed against evidence by the admissions team.
- Never describe the whole site as accessible when a boarding house, an older teaching block or the sports hall is not.
- Never give any advice about a condition, an allergy or medication, which belongs to the school nurse and a written care plan.
Questions
- Is it not cold to refuse a parent describing their own child?
- It would be if the refusal stopped there. The reply that works gives the provision in detail, says plainly that suitability is a person's decision, and takes the message. Parents accept that at once. What they resent is a vague yes that unravels in September.
- Can it confirm an arrangement we have already agreed?
- No. It cannot look anybody up and has no view of an admissions file, so confirming an arrangement for a named child is both impossible and a disclosure about a child. It can restate the process and hand over.
- Should the site description list what is not accessible?
- Yes. A family plans a visit and sometimes a whole application around it, and a mixed site described honestly lets them ask the right question. Accessible as a single word is what produces a wasted journey.
Keep reading
- Everything for a private schoolAdmissions timelines, fees, bursaries and uniform lists are safe ground for a school assistant. Anything about a named pupil or applicant is not.
- Handling accessibility requests in generalTwo different things arrive as one message. A published accessibility statement answers the first. The second is a request, and it needs a person.
- What a school can actually delete when a family asksRegistration papers, assessment scripts and a reference from another school are different records, and a child cannot make the request.
- The most contested clause in the parent contract, and how to state itWithdrawing a pupil, dropping the coach seat and stopping music lessons all carry notice periods, and they are not the same period.
- What actually comes back, and what only ever gets creditedA deposit credited against the final term is not a refund. Neither is an absent half term, and a trip stops being recoverable early.
Try it on your own material
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