Accessibility is not just physical access, it also concerns digital products, spaces and services. Credit: Sophie Mitchell for UCL.

11 March 2025

By Leda Kamenopoulou and Ben Watson

What is and what is not accessibility?

Accessibility is often defined as the extent to which products, services and spaces are easy for people with disabilities to access and use. In this blog post, we argue that this is a narrow view and accessibility is a lot more than that. We do this by busting six common misconceptions. (more…)

Credit: zinkevych via Adobe Stock.

5 March 2025

By Claire Cameron, Aase Villadsen, Amelia Roberts, Jo Van Herwegen, Vivian Hill, Dominic Wyse

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson is right to call for “…a national effort to tackle the epidemic of school absence so we can give all children the best start in life”, but the solutions adopted by recent successive governments, especially fining parents, have not been effective. We need a rethink in how to address attendance at school. Whether through truancy, also known as skipping school, or formal exclusion, far too many children are missing out on their right to education, with potentially lifelong consequences. As many studies show, these children are more likely to be socially disadvantaged children and those with special educational needs or mental health problems. We believe an approach based around the principles of social pedagogy offers a better way forward. Our new research highlights why this needs to start in primary school. (more…)

UCL speaker presenting with a microphone. Credit: Mary Hinkley for UCL.

29 October 2024

By Leda Kamenopoulou

Synchronous accessibility can be challenging

In a previous IOE blog, I wrote about accessibility as a right and not an option, and I summarised key actions for creating accessible digital content, such as Word and PowerPoint documents. These resources, however, are almost always created asynchronously. In this post, I consider how to make sure live teaching delivery is accessible, focusing in this instance on the needs of students with hearing impairment. I list best practices that I recommend as an expert on inclusive education and sensory accessibility, and as a programme leader for UCL’s Special and Inclusive Education MA, experienced in putting reasonable adjustments in place for our students. (more…)

Live stream of a talk with BSL interpretation and live captioning.

30 May 2023

By Leda Kamenopoulou

What is accessibility and why should we think about it?

Accessibility is ensuring physical and digital spaces and products are accessible to people with disabilities. It is also a lot more than that, because by making access easier for disabled people, we make access easier for everyone. Moreover, thinking about accessibility is not optional, it ensures compliance with minimum legal requirements, such as the Equality Act (2010) and the EU Directive on Web Accessibility (2018). As highlighted by the Global Accessibility Awareness Day, accessibility is not just ‘nice to have’ or a ‘tick-box’ exercise, so everyone in an organisation must know and be committed to best practices. (more…)

Wendelin_Jacober / Pixabay

10 June 2021

By Claire Cameron, Jo Van Herwegen, Mark Mon-Williams and Aase Villadsen

“Covid 19 constitutes the greatest crisis that high-income countries have seen in many generations,” says UNICEF in its recent analysis. And children “are among those at greatest risk of seeing their living standards fall and their personal well-being decline”.

This, in turn, threatens to broaden the group of children at risk of exclusion – not just for misbehaviour, but because they have needs that are not being met. The danger is that, in the pandemic’s aftermath, we focus on ‘catch up’ learning for the relatively advantaged, and neglect the long-term health, wellbeing, and competency benefits of inclusive education for all students – especially those who are poor and ‘near poor’.

Now is the time to think how we can organise structures, services, and systems in every school so that all (more…)

14 June 2019

By Rob Webster

Last week, Schools Week reported on an academy in Dorset that had controversially retained its ‘outstanding’ grade despite Ofsted inspectors’ notes revealing that ‘dozens of pupils leave each year’.

The inspection was triggered by concerns over ‘exceptional levels of pupil movement’, but to be clear, the regulator concluded there was “no hidden agenda” and “no sense of any inappropriate movement”.

The social media firestorm that predictably followed reflected the uncertainty that surrounds a signature feature of the new inspection framework, which comes into effect (more…)