Frequently
asked questions

AccessHub is a central platform that helps schools and MATs manage accessibility planning and compliance. It saves staff time, reduces legal risk, and gives leaders confidence that accessibility is embedded across leadership, curriculum, environment, and communication. With AccessHub you can:

• Run a guided self-audit — covering leadership, curriculum, environment, and communication, mapped to over 50 distinct legal, statutory, inspectorate, technical, and sector standards/resources.
• Access expert guidance — every question is linked to plain-English commentary, technical standards, and practical examples.
• See costed recommendations — from no/low-cost quick wins to capital projects, prioritised against risk and safeguarding impact.
• Collaborate and assign actions — SENDCos, site staff, leadership, and governors can work together with clear accountability.
• Gain trust-wide oversight and reports — export inspection-ready information for governors, Ofsted, or funding bids, including your statutory Accessibility Plan.
• Track progress with an audit trail — every action is logged, dated, and linked to evidence.
• Benchmark progress — simple, objective scoring that makes it easy to track improvement and compare schools consistently across a MAT.
• Demonstrate commitment through certification — schools receive a visible Access Badge, showcasing their progress and signalling to parents, governors, and inspectors that accessibility is being taken seriously.
• Get direct expert support — every subscription includes a free 30-minute consultation with national SEND or accessibility specialists.

No, think of it more as a central hub for all your accessibility-related data. Whilst AccessHub can produce a wealth of pre-formatted reports, like your statutory Accessibility Plan, governor updates, and inspection evidence, the real value of our platform is achieved through the quality and consistency of data you can export into existing templates, EHCPs, funding applications and SIPs.

AccessHub goes beyond ramps and doorways. The framework assesses four key pillars: Leadership and Strategy, Curriculum, Physical Environment, and Information and Communication.

Not completely. AccessHub gives you continuous, expert-informed guidance at a fraction of the cost of consultancy. Schools may still choose to use consultants occasionally, particularly for any specific complex assessments or legal challenges. But with AccessHub you’ll need them far less.

Not at all. SENDCos may use it to cut EHCP admin or produce detailed audits, but Heads can use it for strategic insight and planning, Business Managers for budgets and reporting, teachers for CPD, and Trust Leaders for consistency across schools.

No. The platform is designed to be intuitive, with plain-English guidance at every step. Your free consultation can always be used as a walk-through, but it really won’t be necessary.

Our proprietary framework, Welcometer™, is built on over 50 distinct legal, statutory, inspectorate, technical and sector standards/ resources. Some of these include the Equality Act, Children and Families Act, SEND Code of Practice, SEND Regulations, Ofsted’s inspection toolkit, Building Regulations Part M, BS 8300, and WCAG 2.1 digital accessibility guidelines.

Welcometer™ is reviewed formally every year and adjusted termly if legislation, inspection priorities, or standards change. Updates are included in your licence.

The audit contains over 400 plain-English questions across 50+ categories, each one mapped to the relevant legislation and standards. Every question is supported with context and criteria, helping you make an informed assessment of your setting. Alongside this, a rich bank of resources (aligned to each question) — including ‘Welcome Wins’ sector case studies, images and examples, technical drawings, and FAQs — are designed to build knowledge across your whole team and support you to take practical, positive action to enhance accessibility.

Bronze, silver and gold Access Badges show the progress you’ve made and the action you’ve taken to make your school more accessible. They’re awarded automatically as you audit, act and improve.

Your Access Badge is awarded from your overall accessibility score across Leadership, Curriculum, Physical Environment, and Information and Communication (25% each).

For every question: Yes = full points, Partial = half points, No = zero points. As your score improves, you’ll unlock Bronze (50%+), Silver (65%+), or Gold (80%+), especially by implementing your audit recommendations.

Everything is tracked within AccessHub. There is no paperwork, no external moderation, and your certificate and reports are ready in just a few clicks.

No. AccessHub is designed to guide and support schools with accessibility planning. While we distil legislation, standards, and best practice into practical steps, only the courts can ultimately define what counts as a ‘reasonable adjustment’ in each specific context. Schools remain responsible for their own decisions, but AccessHub helps ensure those decisions are thoughtful, well-evidenced, and easy to explain.

Absolutely. Each action logged in AccessHub creates a dated audit trail, showing what has been considered, implemented, or planned. This helps schools’ evidence their efforts in relation to the Equality Act 2010.

The Equality Act 2010 places a duty on schools to make reasonable adjustments for disabled pupils and staff. But the law stops short of defining exactly what counts as “reasonable”, and this grey area often leads to disputes, appeals, and reputational risk. Schools must show they have thought carefully, planned proactively, and acted proportionately.

Yes. Every audit question and all recommendations can be filtered in multiple ways, making it flexible to the specific needs and priorities of your setting.

We’ve even created a Priority Audit, which enables schools to solely focus on the highest risk items across leadership, curriculum, information and physical environment. For many schools, we believe this will be their default starting point with AccessHub.

AccessHub’s Welcometer™ covers the full spectrum of disabilities and access needs, for example, people with visual impairments, physical disabilities, neurodiversity and medical needs.

This ensures accessibility is seen as more than ramps and doorways – it’s embedded across curriculum, leadership, information, communication, and the physical environment.

Yes. All audit questions and recommendations can be filtered, enabling you to generate data and reports to quickly see what’s most relevant.

Whether you need information for a pupil with a new EHCP, a governor interested in sensory environments, or a Trust leader wanting assurance across mobility needs, this filtering makes it simple to plan proactively and ensure no group is overlooked.

If a pupil with a visual impairment is joining your setting, you can filter the audit and instantly see actions linked to signage, lighting, digital access, and large-print information. Likewise, for hearing impairments, you’ll see relevant items on assistive listening devices, classroom acoustics, and staff awareness. This saves time and ensures every decision is tailored and evidence backed.

Trust dashboards provide a consolidated view across all schools, showing progress and scores, badge levels, costed actions, and risks. This makes it easy to identify required actions, share best practice, and ensure consistent reporting to trustees and governors.

Leaders can also dig deeper into data – for example, by planned actions or provisional costs – to gain better context and insight. This level of detail helps trusts not only identify where support is most urgently needed but also compare how schools are progressing against key accessibility priorities.

Trust leaders often commission costly external reviews or spend significant time chasing data across schools. AccessHub removes that burden by standardising reporting and providing clear, comparable dashboards – reducing consultancy fees and freeing senior capacity at central level.

At school level, the anticipated savings are also significant. By streamlining processes and reducing duplication, AccessHub is designed to save valuable time for teaching staff and SENDCos in particular, helping them focus more on pupils and less on paperwork.

Yes. All schools in a MAT use the same WelcomeMeter™ framework, ensuring scores and reports are consistent and directly comparable. This makes it simple to identify areas for focus and share best practice.

With our Access Badge and RAG scoring systems, leaders can compare schools at a glance and drill down into detail where needed.

Trust dashboards give leaders and trustees a clear view of accessibility across every school. You can export consolidated reports for board meetings, audit committees, or external assurance, reducing the need for bespoke reports or external reviews.

Yes. Costed recommendations allow MAT leaders to prioritise investment across the estate. This helps in planning bids, coordinating capital works, and ensuring resources are targeted where they will have the most impact.

AccessHub provides consistent, evidence-based reports across all schools. These can be shared with key stakeholders to demonstrate that accessibility is embedded at trust level, not just in individual schools.

Yes. Data can be exported in different formats, making it easy to feed into MAT strategy documents, accessibility statements, or annual governance reports.

Once you’ve registered your account, it takes just five minutes to add and invite your team – then you’re ready to begin your audit.

Most schools complete their priority audit in a couple of hours. This focuses on the highest-risk issues and quickly generates an initial Accessibility Plan, complete with expert recommendations and costed actions.

Because all questions and guidance are written in plain English and mapped to the most relevant standards, there’s no need for specialist training or external support.

No installation is required. AccessHub is a secure, cloud-based platform that works in a browser. You simply log in with your school credentials. Updates and new features are automatic and included in your annual licence.

Not directly. AccessHub is designed so that everything builds from our expert-led audit, which underpins future recommendations and ensures alignment with our framework.

From there, the platform generates an up-to-date Accessibility Plan (and other reports) with a single click, based on your data.

If you already use a standard template, as many schools do, you can easily export AccessHub data in multiple formats and copy it straight into your preferred document style.

AccessHub is designed to be simple and intuitive, with built-in guidance and video help available throughout the platform. For additional support, you can contact our team at support@theaccesshub.co.uk with any technical queries.

Every subscription also includes a free 30-minute consultation with Jane Cooper or Kate Whittlesey – national experts in accessibility and SEND. This session can be used to discuss audit results, prepare for inspection, or explore specific accessibility challenges in more detail.

Alternatively, the consultation time can be used for practical technical support, such as walking a Trust leader through their MAT-level data and reporting.

AccessHub is designed to be intuitive, with bitesize guidance built into every audit question. Each action is linked to context, examples, and references (such as BS 8300 or JCQ Access Arrangements). This makes the platform a built-in CPD tool for teachers, TAs, and governors – helping staff learn as they go.

We don’t offer traditional “how to use the system” training, because it isn’t needed. Instead, we provide Champions training for nominated staff who want to go further. Champions gain deeper knowledge of accessibility and inclusion, learn how to get the best from the platform, and are supported to share best practice across their Trust or school community.

Yes. You can invite governors, trustees, or MAT leaders as users with controlled permissions, or simply export concise reports for board papers and inspection evidence.

Yes. One flat annual fee per school. No hidden charges, no per-user licences, and no set-up fees.

No. Every licence includes unlimited users. SENDCos, site managers, governors, MAT leads – anyone who needs access can be invited at no extra cost.

Yes. Discounts are available for both MATs and local authorities. You also get a trust-wide dashboard to compare progress, spot risks, and share great practice.

You’ll lose access to all key functionality, as well as your past reports. However, your data will remain safely stored (unless requested otherwise) and will be immediately available should you choose to renew later.

AccessHub is designed for all schools in England. Our Welcometer™ framework is aligned to English legislation and guidance (Equality Act 2010, SEND Code of Practice, Ofsted inspection toolkit, DfE statutory guidance, and much more), so it applies consistently across every type of setting. Schools that can use our platform include:

• Maintained schools (community, foundation, voluntary controlled, voluntary aided)
• Academies and free schools
• Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) — with trust-wide dashboards and reporting
• Special schools (maintained, academy or independent)
• Pupil Referral Units (PRUs) and Alternative Provision academies
• Nursery schools (maintained and academy)
• Infant, junior, primary, and secondary schools (including all-through schools)
• Sixth form schools/colleges within the school sector

The only exception is that the current framework is tuned for English schools. Variants for early years and FE colleges are planned for future development.

Your data always belongs to you. Our platform is fully GDPR-compliant, securely hosted on UK/EU servers, and deliberately designed so pupil-level data is never collected. Here are some FAQs relating to your data and privacy.

Under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, your school or MAT remains the data controller for all information entered into AccessHub. AccessHub acts as the data processor, holding and processing data securely on your behalf in accordance with contractual obligations and applicable law.

AccessHub may also process data in an anonymised and aggregated form for two limited purposes:

• Framework refinement — to enhance and develop the WelcomeMeter™ methodology by identifying common patterns.
• Sector-level reporting — to provide trusted partners (for example, Local Authorities or national bodies) with broad, statistical insights such as the proportion of schools offering a particular type of provision within a region, or areas where targeted funding may be most effective.

In all cases, such outputs will be fully anonymised and will not identify individual schools, MATs, or users by name unless explicit consent has been obtained from the data controller.

No. AccessHub does not collect or store sensitive pupil (or staff) records. The platform focuses on actions, policies, environment, and leadership – keeping the scope clear and compliance straightforward.

Yes. Whilst our current Welcometer™ framework designed for primary, secondary and specialist settings, variants for early years and FE/colleges are planned.

Absolutely. Schools can submit feedback directly through the platform, and we’ll be hosting future events for SENDCos, leaders, governors, and specialists. Suggestions are reviewed and, where appropriate, incorporated into our product roadmap.

Keeping pace with legislation and best practice is central to AccessHub. Our advisory board and external partners – including architects, solicitors, HR specialists, and experts in accessibility, education, and SEND – are tasked with monitoring and advising on relevant changes.

This team tracks updates to key legislation, statutory guidance, and technical standards. Our WelcomeMeter™ framework is formally reviewed each year, and versioned updates are released termly if needed.

Schools are notified of any changes through the platform, so you can be confident your audits, actions, and reports remain clear, consistent year on year.