Easter falls late in calendar this year so here’s hoping for some more reliable sunshine! Whether you’re offering educational or holiday activities at an outdoors or indoors setting though, poor accessibility is sure to put a cloud over the fun for many school groups and families.
Currently 11% of the UK child population are disabled and 18.4% of school aged children in England have special educational needs (Ref: Scope charity & Department for Education statistical data), so these figures alone prove the SEND market is not small. Add non-SEND students, assisting staff, siblings and friends to the mix and the impact of running non inclusive events is much higher. Why? Well, remember that saying, “the youngest in the group dictates the visit”? That’s because their needs aren’t optional, if a family has a baby or young toddler and your venue doesn’t have the facilities or welcome their needs, the whole troop will visit elsewhere (and likely tell their friends!). The same goes for families, school or other youth groups with children who have SEND: exclude that child and you’ll miss out on the whole group – which could prove very costly.
Many education providers panic about what to do and not do when welcoming visitors with SEND but in truth, it’s not complicated or expensive. I’ve worked with hundreds of museums and heritage sites on this, and the principles apply for any visitor attraction.
A warm welcome, open-ended inclusive activities and a good goodbye are the three things to remember and can be baked into ‘business as usual’ without the need for expensive materials.
Top tips for running inclusive Easter activities
Here are my top tips for running inclusive Easter activities at your site:
- Don’t rely on word searches or ‘find the letter’ trails – they always end up spelling ‘Easter Egg’ anyway … yawn! Maybe use pictures, photos or objects to spot as a trail, perhaps characters out of a story that families know well.
- Don’t assume all children can or want to eat chocolate or sweets – offer a non-edible alternative – small toy, stickers etc.
- Not everyone likes or understands why there is a giant Rabbit waving at them (hot and bothered member of staff dressed up as one!). Invite visitors to approach if they want to, rather than bouncing up to them unannounced.
- Craft activities are about enjoying time together and exploring, not about making a ‘perfect’ creation at the end. Be more ‘open ended’ in your activities and support families by having base elements to add to, for instance pre-cut egg or bunny shapes to decorate. Offer ‘take home’ kits to do or complete later if preferred.
- Be relaxed about talks and events. Some children may seem disinterested, but are regulating what they take in, and pacing themselves. Involve those who seem keen and don’t worry about sticking to a script, roll with what the child brings to the performance, it will be more fun for you too!
- Remember wheelchair users when you plan activities and events, table-top access, spaces reserved at front of talks, ramps into buildings and plan events near to paths not in the middle of fields!
Find out more
It’s not too late to make your Easter events and activities more inclusive this year – have a look at www.sendinmuseums.org for some ideas and ask your staff who has lived/loved experience of SEND. You may very well find you already have experts on your team!
Whilst the simple suggestions offered in this post are aimed specifically at Easter activities, they can be considered and applied on all other activities throughout the year.
This blog post was written by:
Sam Bowen, SEND in Museums
Sam delivers training globally to the museum and cultural sector on all aspects of welcoming children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). She also speak at conferences, write articles and mentor museums on organisational change in Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI).
Sam has worked in the Museum sector for over 25 years during which time has been a Curator, Education Manager and Museum Development Officer. She bring this knowledge, combined with lived/loved experience as a SEND parent to her disabled daughter Lucy, to support museums as a freelance consultant. Sam is the founder of the SEND in Museums campaign, author of the Special Schools and Museums toolkit and creator of www.sendinmuseums.org, a sector advocacy and guidance resource.
In 2021 Sam was named the Radical Change Maker in the Museum Association’s Museums Change Lives awards and in 2024 she won the Sector Impact award from the Museums and Heritage Show. Sam’s commitment to Museums is to help them become accessible to the 11% of the UK child population who are SEND and deserve equity in cultural engagement.
Connect with Sam on Twitter/ X: @makedoandSEND and @SENDinMuseums
