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What are reasonable adjustments?
Introduce
Reasonable adjustments’ are changes those providing services must make so that children aren’t put at a disadvantage compared with others. Settings have a legal obligation to support those who are disabled with reasonable adjustments. They must not discriminate against disabled children.
The Department for Education provides the following examples:
Reasonable adjustments can help level the playing field for disabled pupils in the classroom. For example:
- A visually impaired pupil is seated to accommodate their field of vision
- Traffic light cards are available for a pupil to communicate who needs extra time
- Adjusting your snack policy to let a pupil with diabetes have a high calorie snack
- Coloured paper is provided for a dyslexic pupil
- Adapting your school uniform policy for a pupil with allergies or sensory needs
- Allow a pupil with dyslexia and/or dyspraxia to use a laptop to write
- Letting a pupil go into the dinner hall before other pupils to help their sensory processing
- Providing ear defenders to a pupil who is very sensitive to noise to wear as appropriate
- Allowing a disabled pupil to sit exams in a room for a smaller group of pupils
Develop
A range of needs will need to be accommodated to support children’s sensory needs – some will need a visually rich environment while others will get overwhelmed so need a low sensory environment.
Source: Department for Education
The following videos offer reflections on how settings might make reasonable adjustments:
Reflect
What other low-cost, high-impact adjustments could your school make?
Students mustMark as done -
Practical support
Introduce
Real examples of reasonable adjustments show how settings translate expectations into practical, everyday support that removes barriers to learning. They help staff understand what meaningful change looks like across different areas of school life and make it easier to apply consistent, child centred approaches. In this section, we look at what practical support settings can provide for example, for those with physical needs.
Nuala Finegan, Senior School Quality Assurance Officer for SEND, Manchester City Council discusses the importance of practical support:
Develop
Efrosyni Soumelidis Simms has some resource ideas for early years settings:
Reflect
What Reasonable Adjustments do you currently use?
Are there other Reasonable Adjustments that you could easily introduce?
What training needs might you have?
Students mustMark as done
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Reasonable adjustments are changes that schools are legally required to make so that children with disabilities are not placed at a disadvantage compared with their peers. These adaptations might involve altering routines, providing additional support, or modifying the environment to ensure equitable access to learning and participation. They aim to remove barriers and enable every child to benefit from what the setting offers in the same way as others.
This topic looks in more detail at these adjustments and how they can be applied in practice.Learning outcomes:
This topic will:
- Introduce you to reasonable adjustments
- Consider why they are important in creating an inclusive learning setting