Becoming Accessible

“It’s the unlocked but closed door that she worries about the most.” Parent, Leigh Berg, is explaining her daughter’s mental preparation for moving around the school in a wheelchair. I hadn’t thought about it before, but when sitting in a wheelchair, turning knobbed door handles is near impossible. An unlocked, but closed door efficiently shuts down her daughter’s independence and literally stops her in her tracks. 

At School-in-Action Day many of us parents encountered children in wheelchairs, problem-solving everyday moments from how to find a reachable writing surface whilst in the wheelchair, to how to get out to the field for lunch. Some of us parents might have received interesting snippets from our own children about what it was like to spend an hour in a wheelchair.

Adapting to a wheelchair

I was eager to find out what school life is like for children who use wheelchairs fulltime. Leigh agreed to share her reflections about her daughter’s experience at PNPS. Her daughter, Sarah-Hope, was born with a feisty spirit, a bright mind, and a body that requires much problem-solving whilst living in a world built for humans with working limbs. Sarah-Hope’s arms have not developed, so her well-functioning hands grow from her shoulders. Her legs and feet have proven amazingly adaptive to take on many arm/hand functions, but their structure has also made walking on feet a challenge. Again, with determined adaptability, Sarah-Hope became an adept knee-walker.

When Sarah-Hope joined Red Roots in 2018 walking on her knees was her main method of movement. However the medical advice was that she should transition to using a wheelchair because the structure of her legs was too weak to walk the distances between her classroom and other school places. Leigh remembers the psychological journey of coming to accept the wheelchair, as it meant Sarah-Hope would have to relinquish the independence that knee-walking had offered her, and grieve the fact that, in yet another way, she was “not like the other children”. It took a village of support – Red Roots teachers, her facilitator, school OT and parents – for Sarah-Hope to come to accept the wheelchair. Alongside the emotional process, there was a practical process of finding the actual physical spaces where she could navigate her wheelchair. With the help of the OT, routes between Sarah-Hope’s grade activity spaces were worked out and practice runs were done to prepare her for Grade 1.

Accessibility at PNPS

The school is a single-storey building on flat ground, which lends itself to wheelchair movement. However, other intentional changes have been made too. Ann explains that in 2004 PNPS hired disability consultants to conduct an “access audit” of the school. The report highlighted some immediate and relatively easy changes, which the school proceeded to implement at the time, e.g. making wooden triangles made to fit to either side of the lip in the doorway entrances for wheelchair access. However, many of the recommended changes required budget decisions. Ann ensured that the Access Audit report became a guiding document for the school’s future strategic plans and budgets, including subsequent renovations and building work. For example, correct ramps and door handles were installed in the new art room.

Ann smiles warmly as she recalls how the accessibility auditors, a blind person and a person in a wheelchair, reported their surprise at how the PNPS children were comfortable to approach them and converse with them. This embracing attitude amongst the children was not their common experience when visiting schools. We reflected upon how accessibility is not only found in the design of buildings but also in the hearts of people.

A couple of years after this accessibility audit, Adam joined the school. His reliance on a wheelchair inspired changes to sport, namely boys being included in netball, as well as the introduction of basketball and table tennis. The school play was written to include a part for his wheelchair on stage.

Ann reflects on various ways teachers adapted to include disabled children. Some disabled children, due to weakness or paralysis, require the use of nappies for toileting. Ann has stories to tell about compassionate teachers who, with maximum care and minimum fuss, changed nappies in a way that upheld the child’s dignity. Teachers have been required to make other adaptations too: wearing microphones for deaf children; rearranging the classroom seating for the visually impaired children. I asked Ann if any awareness or sensitivity training had been required to help the staff embrace children with disability. “When a disability is visible and obvious, we have found our staff respond with compassion, care and willingness to adapt; it is the invisible disabilities that remain a challenge for us all, just as they do in general society.”

Redefining weak and strong

Leigh was telling me about an experiential learning activity she had run with a youth group to which Sarah-Hope belongs. They had set up a running race with a twist: the children had to race on their knees with their arms tied behind their backs. The able-bodied children eagerly participated but quickly found that the activity was both exhausting and unexpectedly painful. Leigh chuckles as she recalls how Sarah-Hope was decidedly unimpressed with her friends’ excessive moaning given that they were walking on a carpeted floor, whereas she regularly finds herself “kneeing” over stones and tar. The great “aha” moment for the children was that Sarah-Hope is not weak, in fact she is incredibly strong and determined.

It is easy for us able-bodied people to judge another by what they can’t do, rather than understand how much they have already done just to show up, let alone participate. The wheelchair experience that PNPS arranges once every two to three years helps give children some insight into this. 

Learning through experience

Thanks to C&E Mobility, who loan wheelchairs to the school for a two-week period, each child gets an opportunity to navigate school in a wheelchair. Ann introduced the activity during an assembly, which included enthusiastic dramatic performances by the teacher assistants to provoke the children to be mindful about how they engaged in the wheelchair experience. Important wheelchair etiquette includes:

•        ask a person if you may push them before doing so
•         be thoughtful to move bags and belongings out of the way of the wheelchair
•         respect the personal space of the person in the wheelchair
•         bend down to talk at face level.

Ann was clear that this exercise was to allow children to develop empathy for those needing to use wheelchairs, and not an opportunity for wild races and wheelies in the quad.

  

  

Ann reports that children took the activity seriously, bringing her reports on which rooms were inaccessible and needed improvements, e.g. the computer room. The experience inspired children, and teachers alike, to be proactively removing barriers to participation.

Racing together

At the Foundation Phase Athletics Day this year, Sarah-Hope’s class teacher, Suzette Embalo, arranged for one of the races to be a “wheelchair race” in which Sarah-Hope could race against her peers in wheelchairs. Let me end with the letter that Leigh wrote to Ann following the day:'

“I just wanted to thank you for your efforts to include wheelchairs at the FP Athletics Day this year. When Sarah-Hope and I had night-time cuddles on Saturday night, I asked her what her favourite part of the day was. She hadn't said much until that point. But her whole face lit up and she said, "RUNNING! I love to RUN RUN RUN and I wish I could do that every weekend". For a child who can't walk on her feet, to have the thrill of 'running' with her classmates was just incredible. She did also say it would have been great if all the children had left their wheelchair brakes on so she could have beaten them all:)

My heart had sunk in January 2019 when Sarah-Hope told me, “Mom! Mom! I'm going for an Athletics trial”. My honest response was how do we get you OUT of Athletics day, not INTO it! For the first time in my life, I got to arrive at an event having had nothing to do with how Sarah-Hope would be included in it. I just stood and watched her bravely line up and 'run' in her wheelchair to the cheers of the families present. Having a school space where inclusion can be tried and tested, can fail and reinvent itself, changes her experience of the world and gives her confidence to face it (and us too). What an encouragement!”

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Written by Jacqui Tooke, parent with 2 children at PNPS and an older child who used to attend.