A Day in the Life: Sarah's Journey

It is essential to think about what the phrase 'barriers to education' means before talking about my own education experience.  barriers can be attitudinal, organisational or practical  Although it is important to remember that sometimes there is no way to do this due to the nature of the disability and the experienced problems. As a result, each individual should be treated differently and their needs addressed in the same way. The barriers to learning faced by students with disabilities are many and complex and differ from student to student and often daily. So, for this article, I will be only writing about my own experiences and understand that this may be very different to what others may have experienced. When looking at access, you need to think about all aspects, not just physical; these include: Access means physical access as well as access to the curriculum Awareness of the needs of disabled people and the barriers they may experience Acceptance that y...

When I was born I was diagnosed with Spina Bifida. After surviving the 3 weeks that my parents were told I wouldn't, my parents began to realise they had a fighter for a daughter.  I have also been informed that at this time my parents were asked whether they wanted to put me up for adoption. My parents expressed how horrified they were by this question and never had to question whether keeping me was the right thing to do. This brought them strength to carry on and do their best by me. Due to my ill health, the hole in my back was not closed up immediately, as a result, this led to Hydrocephalus also developing. The first 5 years of my life were challenging for the whole family not just for me. I have an older brother who also had to learn to grow up quite quickly and who also had his own health problems. My parents recall a time when I was in one hospital and my brother was in another. This led to the family being split in two for a period of time.  My shunt bein...

In 2010 the Equality Act replaced the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. The Equality Act is to cover more areas of an individuals life not just employment like the Disability Discrimination Act did previously. One of my main concerns is how a number of different minority legislation's have been lumped into one and that this is meant to be sufficient, wont this make the current Act less flexible? limiting those who are seen as having a disability as not all individuals fit nicely into a category of impairment. So does the Equality Act really work? I have come to recognise that there is a mixed view on whether it really works or not depending on the individuals that are spoken to, especially with regards to reasonable adjustment within the workplace. When speaking to officials (including trade union officials who deal with case work) they can not speak highly enough of the Act and are able to state that as a result of the legislation they have been able to resolve a number of c...

The issue of Access is often a contentious one, if you talk to someone with a disability then there is always problems with not enough being done, yet if you talk to people in authority there are always excuses as to why more can not be done. I appreciate that there are times when it is not possible for there to be access to something be it the physical limitations of the person themselves (e.g. rock climbing) or through buildings being so old that they can't be adjusted enough to be fully accessible. Although this is the case, organisations will often hide behind 'reasonable adjustment', expecting disabled people to just accept that as much is being done as possible. As mentioned above, I appreciate there are some limitations with buildings that are really old and that I will not be able to get everywhere that I may want to, but I still feel that often more can be done than is currently being done so. Companies should want to do as much as they can to include everyone (at ...

The UK is one of the richest countries in the world; we live in a society where we have freedom of speech, where we are “free” to travel where we like when we like. Many people in 21 st Century Britain commute on the train and nearly everyone at some point will have travelled by train. The ease, the simplicity of hopping on a train whilst it takes you to your destination when you hop off again enjoy your destination for as long as you like before deciding which train to take home. That is, of course, unless you are disabled when the situation is very different.  This blog post will focus on First Capital Connect as that is who I use most frequently but it could easily apply to any other rail company as the situation is the same across the rail network.  What they tell you about special assistance They rail companies (in this instance First Capital Connect) tell you to ring their special assistance booking line 24 hours in advance and you will be guaranteed...

I am currently in Torquay with my husband who is a teacher for the annual conference for the National Union of Teachers. Although everything seems calmer now that is not how my experience of this weekend started. It started before the weekend when I did some research into the hotel we were staying at (the room was through a block booking and so did not have the same control). I decided to look into it for my own peace of mind and glad I did. The hotel we are staying at is the Rainbow International and all information I found on-line did not fill me with confidence that it would be suitable. As a result my husband contacted the hotel for me on my behalf to ensure that it was suitable for my needs. When he rang up, he was reassured that we were to get the fully accessible room and that we would not be moved. This room was designed around a specific person and although this is the case we were guaranteed to be getting this room due to my specific needs and being more physically impaired ...

Over the past year I have learnt much about myself and other people and so I need to take a moment to reflect on my experiences and in essence how lucky I am to have the life that I do. So many people have to deal with so many more injustices than myself, which I can only begin to imagine the effect that this has. I have made the effort to learn about other sick and disabled peoples lives, to allow me to appreciate what others go through on a daily basis. This learning has made me realise that things are not always clean cut as they seem, leading to me having a greater empathy for people in different situations. I have done my learning through talking to people on social networking sites like Twitter, as well as through listening and taking note of the news and the media as a whole. There have been a number of different items in the media about disabled people which I feel is another reason I have learnt to question what I am told and find out the truth, as unfortunately much of w...