A disability-centred approach to safety encourages educators to place the student at the centre of planning and decision-making. By beginning with the student’s strengths, abilities, interests, and support needs, educators can proactively design physical activity opportunities that focus on safe and inclusive participation. This approach encourages educators to consider factors that may impact participation, including communication, sensory experiences, mobility, confidence, transitions, equipment used, or the physical environment.
Creating safe and inclusive learning environments in physical education, intramurals, and interschool athletics involves more than reducing the risk of injury. It includes thoughtful planning, flexible instructional approaches, inclusive safety practices, and creating the conditions that help students feel supported, included, and confident to participate.
Ophea’s Ontario Physical Activity Safety Standards in Education (OPASSE) provide a foundation for supporting safety during physical activity through activity-specific safety standards specific to equipment, facilities, clothing/footwear/jewellery, special rules/instructions, and supervision. Building on this foundation, Ophea’s Disability-Centred Movement and Disability-Centred Safety resources support educators in designing environments, instruction, and experiences that proactively create safe, inclusive, and meaningful participation opportunities for all students rather than simply adapting activities after challenges arise.
For additional information, strategies, and planning supports for safe and inclusive Health and Physical Education (H&PE) learning environments, explore Ophea’s Stop, Start, Consider! Posters. In addition, sample lesson plans that model lesson planning and instruction from a Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy (CRRP) and disability-centred movement approach are available in Ophea’s Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy in Health and Physical Education resource.
A Roadmap to Safe and Inclusive Student Participation:
Supporting student participation is most effective when educators and students work together to identify strategies, supports, and conditions that help create safe and inclusive physical activity experiences. The following six areas can help act as a road map for planning safe and inclusive participation opportunities for students that support both physical and emotional safety.
1. Know the Learner
Supports educator planning: Knowing the learner provides educators with important information for the planning and implementation of physical activities. Using information from student voice and dialogue with students and their families helps to guide the types of supports and participation strategies that are needed for safe participation.
Supports safe participation: Students with disabilities bring a wide range of strengths, interests, experiences, and support needs to physical activity settings. These needs may not always be visible and may change depending on the activity, environment, or time of day.
Practical Tips
- Learn about student strengths, interests, communication preferences, and potential barriers that may impact safe participation and use this information to inform your planning process.
- Encourage students to communicate when supports, adjustments, or breaks may help them participate safely.
Listen to Jacob’s story on Ophea’s Gym Shorts podcast to hear his lived experiences in school physical activity and what can happen when you ask questions, listen, and get to know your learner.
2. Prioritize Belonging and Emotional Safety
Supports educator planning: When educators establish a learning environment where differences are respected and multiple ways of moving and participating are normalized, students feel more confident and willing to participate in physical activity.
Supports safe participation: When students feel safe and supported, they are often more willing to try new activities, take appropriate risks, and engage in a wider range of physical activity opportunities. When students learn in an environment that increases their confidence, they are often more willing to participate in a wider range of physical activities.
Practical Tips:
- Foster safe and inclusive environments by using strengths-based language, supporting respectful group interactions, and addressing exclusionary behaviour when it occurs.
- Encourage students to identify strategies, peers, or environments that help them feel safe, included, and ready to participate.
To learn more about creating emotionally safety in learning environments, check out the Emotional Safety section in the OPASSE Tools & Resources.
3. Provide Clear and Predictable Communication
Support educator planning: When educators create structured and supportive learning environments students better understand the expectations, routines, and activity transitions that can lead to increased safety during participation.
Supports safe participation: Learning environments with clear and predictable communication allow students to understand what is expected, anticipate what is coming next, and prepare for changes before they occur. For some students, uncertainty, rushed transitions, or unclear expectations may create anxiety or reduce confidence during physical activity.
Practical Tips
- Use clear and predictable communication strategies, sequenced instructions, and planned transitions to help students safely navigate different elements of physical activity and the changes within the learning environment.
- Encourage students to ask questions, request clarification, and communicate their understanding and/or needs in ways that work best for them, such as through gestures, visuals, communication devices, pictures, or verbal responses.
4. Include Flexible Participation Opportunities
Supports educator planning: When educators provide students with flexible physical activity opportunities that allows them to participate in individual ways where their strengths and needs are recognized. Disability-centred safety encourages educators to think flexibly about how students can participate while still maintaining the integrity of the activity. The goal is not to create separate experiences, but to create multiple pathways into participation.
Supports safe participation: When students see that there are multiple pathways to participate in physical activity, they are more likely to engage with confidence. Small or large adjustments to activities, pacing, equipment, or supports can make a significant difference in helping students participate safely.
Practical Tips
- Use flexible approaches to pacing, equipment, rules, groupings, activity spaces, and supports to proactively reduce barriers and support safe and accessible participation.
- Encourage students to identify participation options, pacing, or supports that help them feel safe and confident.
5. Design Safe and Supportive Environments
Supports educators planning: When educators are planning safe and supportive physical activity environments, they should consider the potential barriers that may impact each student’s safe participation.
Supports safe participation: Small environmental changes can often make a significant difference in helping students feel physically and emotionally safe and ready to engage successfully. Noise levels, lighting, crowded spaces, temperature, and unpredictable movement within an activity area may all impact participation.
Practical Tips
- Proactively assess and organize physical activity environments by identifying potential barriers and clearly defining activity spaces, boundaries, and movement areas to support safe and accessible participation.
- Encourage students to communicate when environmental factors such as noise, lighting, space, or movement make participation more difficult or uncomfortable.
6. Choose Equipment Intentionally
Supports educator planning: Intentional equipment selection helps educators increase accessibility, confidence, and independence by providing students with equipment options that support safe participation and proactively address barriers before difficulties arise.
Supports safe participation: Providing equipment options reinforces that there are multiple ways to participate in physical activity. Using equipment with different sizes, textures, weights, colours, or movement speeds can help create more opportunities for safe participation.
Practical Tips
- Ensure adaptive or specialized equipment is confirmed with trained school staff (as identified in the student’s Individual Education Plan (IEP)) to be in good working condition and properly adjusted to meet the needs of the student using the equipment.
- Encourage students to explore and communicate which equipment options help them feel most comfortable, confident, and successful.
Moving Forward with Disability-Centred Safety
Safe and inclusive physical activity opportunities begin with thoughtful planning, inclusive safety practices, and recognizing that participation may look different for every student. Disability-centred safety involves ongoing reflection, collaboration, responsiveness, and a willingness to create conditions where all students can participate safely.
Ophea has many resources that can help support educators build their own road map for creating safe and inclusive physical activity experiences where all students can participate with confidence, dignity, and belonging. For more information on Ophea’s resources check out:
- OPASSE: provides safety standards for curricular, intramural, and interschool activities.
- Disability-Centred Movement: provides support to educators in designing a physical education program for students with disabilities, and approaches for physical activity providers to engage students with disabilities in enriching experiences to develop their physical skills.
- Disability-Centred Safety: provides support to educators in planning safe, inclusive, and student-centred physical activity opportunities that respond to the individual strengths, needs, and abilities of students with disabilities while helping build educator confidence in inclusive practice.
- Emotional Safety: provides support to educators to identify the benefits of emotional safety, highlight areas that can contribute to an emotionally safe environment, and provide examples of instructional strategies that educators can reflect on and implement.
- Stop, Start, Consider!: Doing Disability-Centred Physical Education (PE) and Sport posters: provides support to educators in reflecting on and adopting practices that can create affirming Physical Education (PE) environments for students with disabilities and non-disabled peers alike.
- Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy in Health and Physical Education resource: includes sample lesson plans that model lesson planning and instruction from a Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy (CRRP) and disability-centred movement approach.