I think its fair to say that after my own walk around the rooms and discovered 5 barriers that could affect a student who is a wheelchair user or has mobility issues is a concern. The BA costume course page states that UAL are committed to achieving inclusion and equality for all students, and that disability services can arrange adjustments for disabled students. The reality is this, the barriers that we currently have do not have a quick and easy solution to fix. Most students will confirm their attendance in August, when most of the technical team are off as they are term time only. At the very latest, it could be mid September when a student can enrol and these adjustments could potentially take months to implement.
Currently, every key piece of equipment/furniture is not accessible for those who are wheelchair users and can also impact those with mobility impairments. We need to make these changes now so we are ready for when those students come to open days. Open days are one of the most important days for all the students, ensuring the course and university are correct for them. UCAS has a guide for students with disabilities and how to prepare for open days and their importance. They advise to speak to the disability services during this time to raise any questions about adjustments that can be made for them.
One of the reasons we may not currently have students who are wheelchair users on the course is because we are not wheelchair accessible and that was seen during open days. Of course, all current students at LCF attended open days at other sites. We were located at Lime Grove D Block which was on the first floor and we had no lift. So it was not possible for wheelchair users and those with mobility impairments would not have been able to see the workshops. Curtain Road and Mare street also had accessibility issues which very well may be a big contributing factor as to why we do not have students here now.
Now we are at Eastbank, a building advertising itself as fully accessible will hopefully draw in this new and underrepresented demographic. But what they will see when they come to the costume rooms? Room’s that have narrow spaces between the chairs, machines they cannot use and tables high. The promise that changes would be made ‘if and when’ a student who needed them applied may not be enticing enough. If a student with physical disabilities saw a room with machines with adaptations already in place, tables at different heights etc, this would hopefully give the student more encouragement of our commitment to inclusivity and applications would be higher. As stated by Bunbury (2020) “inclusive education in schools should involve full participation without segregation into special classrooms or services” adaptations to equipment already in place will help foster a sense of inclusion for students who would require them rather than them knowing the adaptations were made specifically from them after applying.
References
UAL (2023) BA (hons) Costume for Performance available at https://www.arts.ac.uk/subjects/performance-and-design-for-theatre-and-screen/undergraduate/ba-hons-costume-for-performance-lcf [Accessed] on 5th December.
UCAS (2023) DISABLED STUDENTS: PREPARING FOR OPEN DAYS AND VISITS available at https://www.ucas.com/undergraduate/applying-university/individual-needs/disabled-students/disabled-students-preparing-open-days-and-visits [Accessed] on 5th December 2023
Bunbury, S. (2020) Disability in higher education–do reasonable adjustments contribute to an inclusive curriculum? Available at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13603116.2018.1503347?casa_token=e3Cac7f0w38AAAAA%3ACeoKgr2sApy_Rq_qE0s90Wp7TB8C_pk-1vsDlE6ImQWx2O8u1VBbLN58AfV2IlnJfu15OLk7ttF3UA [Accessed] on 5th December 2023