Inclusive practice: Disability History Timeline Activity

a. Identify the wide diversity of impairments that count as a disability under the Equality Act.

We did this by putting forward a range of impairing conditions and the children, having discussed the definition of disability, decided if people are in or out of the disability circle. b. Understand that it is the barriers, rather than the impairment that disable. A visual chart of the main groups of impairments was provided to groups. Then two envelopes with pictures of common barriers and then solutions, which worked very well. c. Identify barriers for the diversity of Disabled people and come up with solutions and that this is ‘social model’ thinking. Children went on to identify barriers on cardboard bricks and built a wall of barriers followed by solution-focused thinking to come up with solutions that were attached to the wall on a thought card. d. Recognise that in language and throughout history, thinking is mainly negative towards

Disabled people. In groups students were asked to identify all language about disability on a flip chart sheet, then to discuss and circle all that is negative, which it mostly was. This for older children was followed by the disability timeline exercise, after a talk about the history of Disabled people. [See the next article]. e. Appreciate that in recent years Disabled People have challenged this negative thinking through protests and attaining a Convention on their rights and laws in each country that make discrimination difficult. We used 2 short films on the Social Model and a Scottish film on UNCRPD to get this point across. f. Examine key Articles of the UNCRPD and apply these to a range of discriminatory scenarios to improve the position of Disabled people. We produced a simplified version of UNCRPD and then gave out scenario cards of breaches of disability rights and the children in groups had to identify which article applied. They got the hang of this quickly. g. Apply this thinking in their schools and local areas and make creative representations of the key message.

Disability Wales have now received a specific grant from the Welsh Government to take this work forward with selected schools in Swansea, Powys and Conwy. The results of this extension and the original material will all go up on the Curriculum Hub website at the conclusion of the extension. We will let you know when this is up online.

What is already clear is the enthusiasm that children and staff at the participating schools had, as well as the sense of empowerment that Disabled students expressed as their issues became central to what their class was doing. Already in pilot schools’, practices have changed and several schools told us they would continue to embed this work in their curriculum. Others have taken it out into the community, surveying barriers and sending letters to their local councils about lack of access.

Disability History Timeline Activity

Suitable for Year 5/6 and secondary pupils and above. A series of cards identify periods in history. On the top are general historical events in that era and on the bottom are events that relate to Disabled people. These are either spaced out and stuck on a wall, or laid out on joined together desks. A larger number of cards depict events or circumstances relating to Disabled people over this period. A number are given to each group and they choose where on the timeline they come and put them in place at right angles to the main timeline. This activity generated a lot of discussion.