Including Children With SEND in Clubs and Classes: Reasonable Adjustments That Work

Section 20 of the Equality Act 2010 asks anyone providing a service, a club included, to make reasonable adjustments so disabled people are not put at a substantial disadvantage. For most clubs that means a 15-minute conversation with the family, a six-line profile and three or four small changes that every adult in the room actually knows about.

What does the law actually ask a club to do?

The Equality Act 2010, section 20 sets out the duty to make reasonable adjustments. It applies to people who provide services to the public and to associations with 25 or more members, which covers most sports clubs, dance schools, tuition centres and youth groups in Great Britain.

Two parts matter in practice. The duty is anticipatory: you are expected to think ahead about what disabled children in general might need, not only react when one arrives. And "reasonable" depends on your size and resources. Nobody expects a volunteer-run netball club to build a sensory room. Everybody expects it to let a child wear ear defenders.

The law is the floor. The reason to get this right is simpler: children with SEND who feel unwelcome stop coming, and they rarely tell you why.

What should you ask a family before the first session?

Not "what is the diagnosis?" A label tells a coach very little about what to do when a whistle goes and a nine-year-old covers their ears and walks off court. Plenty of children with real needs have no formal diagnosis, and some families have learned that leading with one gets them turned away.

Ask these instead, in a call or a quiet chat before the first session:

1. What does a good day look like for them, and what usually goes wrong?
2. What helps when they are overwhelmed, and what makes it worse?
3. How do they best take in instructions: spoken, shown, written?
4. Is there anything about noise, touch, light or waiting in queues we should know?
5. Any medical needs, medication or toileting support?
6. Who should we call if something goes wrong, and how quickly will they come?

Six questions, about 15 minutes. Parents of children with SEND have usually answered far worse forms. They notice when a club asks good questions.

Which adjustments do the most work?

Take Wyvern Juniors Athletics in Taunton: 38 children aged nine to 15, two evenings a week on a council track, one paid coach and six volunteers. Four of their juniors have additional needs: two autistic children, one with ADHD and one with a hearing impairment.

Their profiles, written after those first conversations, produced a short list of changes that now apply to everyone:

• The session plan goes out the day before, with the order of drills. Children who struggle with surprises arrive knowing what happens.
• Starts use a raised hand as well as the whistle, which helps the child with a hearing impairment and the two who find the whistle painful.
• A quiet spot by the long jump pit that any child can go to without asking, as long as an adult can see them.
• Instructions are shown before they are explained. The coach demonstrates, then talks.
• One named volunteer per child for the first month, so there is a familiar face at the gate.

None of it costs money. Most of it made the session better for the other 34 children too, which is the usual pattern.

Organisers we speak to often say something like: "We thought inclusion meant extra staff. It mostly meant telling everyone the plan and turning the whistle down."

Should children with SEND join a separate session or the main one?

The main one, by default, with adjustments. We would only start a separate session when the family asks for it or when the main session genuinely cannot be made safe for that child.

A separate "inclusive session" looks generous, and some families want exactly that. But as a default it tends to become the place every child with a label is sent, with the least experienced volunteer, on the least popular evening. It also lets the main session stay exactly as it was, which is the opposite of what the anticipatory duty asks. Change the main session first, and offer a separate one as a choice, not a route.

How do you make sure every coach knows the plan?

This is where most clubs fail, and it is rarely the head coach's fault. The profile gets written, emailed to one person and forgotten. Then the regular coach is off sick, a volunteer runs the warm-up, blows a whistle at full volume and the child goes home and does not come back.

Three rules fix most of it. Keep each child's profile in one place that every adult on their sessions can open on a phone. Make reading it part of being put on the rota. And keep it out of the parents' group chat, because health and disability information is special category data under UK GDPR. Our guide to member records, medical details and consent covers how to store it.

When should the plan be reviewed?

After four weeks, then every term. The first plan is a guess built from one conversation. By week four you will know which adjustments the child uses, which they ignore and which ones they find embarrassing in front of friends. Ask the child as well as the parent once they are settled. Review early after any incident, and add the plan to your risk assessment if it changes how a session runs.

How does Bitir help?

In Bitir, each child's profile can sit on their member record with visibility limited to the managers of that child's channel, so the coach covering on Thursday sees it and other parents never do. A dated task brings the four-week review to the right person. The session plan can go out as a pinned post the day before, and attendance registers show quickly if a child's visits are starting to tail off.

Related reading: how a Newbury judo club kept its juniors with SEND past the first term, and how a Coventry table tennis club stopped running sessions under ratio.