Introduction
1The Good Practice Framework: handling student complaints and academic appeals sets out core principles and operational good practice for higher education providers in England and Wales. Those principles are: accessibility; clarity; proportionality; timeliness; fairness; independence; confidentiality; and improving the student experience.
2Where providers are supporting disabled students the principles of accessibility, fairness, proportionality and confidentiality are particularly important. A provider’s procedures should be easy to navigate and give clear information about how to access advice and support. Information provided by disabled students should be managed in a confidential and sensitive way. Providers should ensure that staff members making decisions affecting disabled students are properly trained and that clear reasons are given for decisions reached.
3This section of the Good Practice Framework sets out some further good practice guidance for providers to consider when supporting disabled students. It includes:
3.1An overview of what the law says about supporting disabled students;
3.2Guidance on how providers can remove obstacles to learning for disabled students;
3.3Information about complaints relating to the Disabled Students’ Allowance;
3.4Guidance on supporting disabled students before induction, after induction and during their studies; and
3.5Guidance on what to do when things go wrong, including managing disability-related issues that arise in complaints and academic appeals handling.
If you prefer to read the guidance note in document form, you can view it as a pdf: