Equalities Policy and Plan
Dorchester, St Birinus CE Primary School is committed to ensuring that there is equality of opportunity for all community groups including pupils, staff, governors, parents and other visitors regardless of race, gender, disability, sexual or any other orientation.Aims
Equality at Dorchester, St Birinus CE Primary School is about providing equality and excellence for all to secure the highest possible standards of attainment. Equality applies to all members of the school community: pupils, parents, community, staff and governors. It is based on the following core values and ethos as expressed in the school’s aims/mission statement.
Our School Vision
At Dorchester, St Birinus CE Primary school, we aim to provide a happy, caring and stimulating environment with opportunities for all children to develop their potential as joyful, confident, proud, healthy and independent individuals with key skills for life.
- We encourage curiosity, independence, interest and an enquiring mind.
- We preserve and develop the religious character of our school in accordance with the Church of England
- We promote an ethos based on mutual respect and Christian values.
- We encourage and support every child to achieve their full potential.
- We deliver a broad and balanced curriculum.
- We encourage everyone to behave politely, respectfully and courteously to everyone in our school and the wider community
- We develop an enthusiastic school community.
- We promote a sense of sharing and involvement between school, home and the wider community.
- We encourage a sense of responsibility for the environment.
- We continue to create an environment, which fosters excitement and enthusiasm.
These aims are designed to ensure that the school provides equality of education and opportunity for all. Dorchester, St Birinus CE Primary school aims to meet the needs of all, taking account of learning ability, disability, ethnicity, culture, gender, language, race, faith or belief, sexual orientation and socio-economic factors.
Such aims include:
· Ensuring that all pupils and staff are encouraged and able to achieve to their full potential
· Reasonable adjustments are made for disability
· Respecting, valuing and celebrating differences between people
· Preparing pupils for life in a diverse society
· Acknowledging and addressing prejudice and prejudice based incidents and taking positive action to eliminate this
· Making the school a place where everyone feels welcomed and valued
· Increasing participation and fostering good relations between different groups within the school and within the wider community
· Ensuring that an inclusive ethos is established and maintained
It is important that in this school we meet the diverse needs of pupils to ensure inclusion for all and that all pupils are prepared for full participation in a diverse society
Leadership and Management
All the school policies reflect a commitment to inclusion and equalities. A clear ethos is also set by the governing body and the school management, which reflects the school’s commitment to equality for all members of the school community. The school advances equalities of opportunity through positive and proactive approaches to valuing and respecting diversity.
The governors take all reasonable steps to ensure that the school environment gives access to people with disabilities, and also strive to make school communications as inclusive as possible for parents, carers and pupils.
The school management works in partnership with others to eliminate all forms of oppressive behaviour; prejudice related incidents and discrimination.
All members of the school community, including pupils, parents, community and staff are consulted and contribute to the development and review of policy documents. The school ensures the involvement of governors and takes positive action to enable consultations and contribution of all.
The evaluations of plans and policies are used to set equality objectives and address equality issues. The development of teaching and the curriculum are monitored to ensure high expectations of all pupils and appropriate breadth of content in relation to the school, local, UK and global community.
Responsibilities
The Governing Body and Headteacher will ensure that the school complies with all relevant equalities legislation and ensures that the policy; related procedures and strategies are implemented. The Headteacher will also ensure that all staff are aware of their responsibilities under the policy.
School Community
/ Responsibility
/
Governing Body / Involving and engaging the whole school community in identifying and understanding equality barriers and in the setting of objectives to address these. Monitoring progress towards achieving equality objectives. Publishing data and publishing equality objectives.
Headteacher / As above including:
Promoting key messages to staff, parents and pupils about equality and what is expected of them and can be expected from the school in carrying out its day to day duties. Ensuring that all school community receives adequate training to meet the need of delivering equality, including pupil awareness. Ensure that all staff are aware of their responsibility to record and report prejudice related incidents.
Teaching Staff / Help in delivering the right outcomes for pupils.
Uphold the commitment made to pupils and parents/carers on how they can be expected to be treated.
Design and deliver an inclusive curriculum
Ensure that you are aware of your responsibility to record and report prejudice related incidents.
Non Teaching Staff / Support the school and the governing body in delivering a fair and equitable service to all stakeholders
Uphold the commitment made by the head teacher/principal on how pupils and parents/carers can be expected to be treated
Support colleagues within the school community
Ensure that you are aware of your responsibility to record and report prejudice related incidents
Parents / Take an active part in identifying barriers for the school community and in informing the governing body of actions that can be taken to eradicate these
Take an active role in supporting and challenging the school to achieve the commitment given to the school community in tackling inequality and achieving equality of opportunity for all.
Pupils / Supporting the school to achieve the commitment made to tackling inequality.
Uphold the commitment made by the head teacher on how pupils and parents/carers, staff and the wider school community can be expected to be treated.
Local Community Members / Take an active part in identifying barriers for the school community and in informing the governing body of actions that can be taken to eradicate these
Take an active role in supporting and challenging the school to achieve the commitment made to the school community in tackling inequality and achieving equality of opportunity for all.
The Headteacher is the named member of staff responsible for leading on equalities.
The school recognises it has to make special efforts to ensure that all groups prosper including:
o Boys and girls, men and women
o All minority ethnic groups including travellers, refugees and asylum seekers
o Pupils or families with different religions or beliefs
o Pupils and others with special educational needs
o Pupils and others with a range of disabilities
o Children looked after and their carers
o Children or staff who are gay or lesbian
o Pupils or staff who are pregnant or have just given birth
o Pupils or staff undergoing gender reassignment
The school identifies vulnerable individuals or groups through its routine analysis of confidential information it holds on its centrally held SIMS data base. A breakdown of this information is attached as an annex at the end of this document.
What sort of school are we?
- The school is a small village primary school of 3 mixed age classes.
- The proportion of pupils eligible for FSM is below the national average
- The proportion of minority ethnic backgrounds is below national average
- Only a small proportion of children have EAL
- The proportion of pupils with SEN (inc Statements) is below the national average
- On entry – children are generally average /low attainment as some have not made the initial progress along the stepping stones.
- The school has Church of England Voluntary Controlled Status
- The school is part of the Abingdon Partnership Schools Extended Schools and in the subgroup of the partnership – South Abingdon Rural Primary Schools (SARPS).
- The school attracts children from a wide area and beyond the catchment.
- 80% of children are from the Berinsfield Ward (recognised as a socio-economic area of deprivation. Some of these are out of catchment.)
The school has identified the following issues that may be barriers to effective learning and successful working at the school:
o Different parental expectations in some areas
o Recruitment, management and development of staff and governors
School’s Commitment to Equalities
As a school we welcome our duties under the Equality Act 2010. The general duties are to:
· eliminate discrimination,
· advance equality of opportunity
· foster good relations
We understand the principal of the act and the work needed to ensure that those with protected characteristics are not discriminated against and are given equality of opportunity.
A protected characteristic under the act covers the groups listed below:
· age (for employees not for service provision),
· disability
· race
· sex (including issues of transgender)
· gender reassignment
· maternity and pregnancy
· religion and belief,
· sexual orientation
· Marriage and Civil Partnership (for employees)
In order to meet our general duties, listed above, the law requires us to fulfil specific duties to demonstrate how we meet the general duties. These are to:
· Publish equality Information – to demonstrate compliance with the general duty across its functions (We will not publish any information that can specifically identify any child)
· Prepare and publish equality objectives
Our objectives will detail how we will ensure equality is applied to the services listed above. However where we find evidence that other functions have a significant impact on any particular group we will include work in this area.
We also welcome our duty under the Education and Inspections Act 2006 to promote community cohesion.
We recognise that these duties reflect international human rights standards as expressed in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, and the Human Rights Act 1998.
The school recognises that new Positive Action provisions in the Equalities Act 2010 allow us to target measures that are designed to alleviate disadvantages experienced by, or to meet the particular needs of, pupils with particular protected characteristics. If we decide to use these we will ensure that it is a proportionate response to achieve the relevant aim.
Breaches
Breaches to this statement will be dealt with in the same ways that breaches of other school policies are dealt with, as determined by the head teacher and governing body.
Equality Policy / Equality Plan
The school has identified the following strategies that are specifically designed to address those issues
1. / Establishing, maintaining and developing a school culture and ethos
o Celebrate diversity/equality
o Celebrate achievement
o Promote positive attitudes towards disabled people
o Promote positive attitudes towards people of different ethnic groups/religions etc
o Involve pupils, parents and staff
o Promote high expectations
o Demonstrate sensitivity to pupils with disabilities
o Communicate behaviour expectations
o Ensure that it welcomes applications for school places and jobs from all sections / · The school opposes all forms of harassment, prejudice related incidents and discrimination and publicly celebrates diversity. The school also actively promotes good personal and community relations. Diversity is respected and inclusion is strength of the school. Advancing diversity is integral to us in our drive to raise standards for all.
· Staff foster a positive atmosphere of mutual respect and trust among pupils from all ethnic groups. The school also caters for the dietary and dress requirements of different religious groups and enables pupils and staff to celebrate festivals and other events relevant to their particular faith and actively encourages all pupils to understand these.
· Clear procedures are in place to ensure that staff are able to confidently deal with all forms of bullying and harassment promptly, firmly and consistently. Actions taken are in line with relevant LA policy and guidance such as those for anti-bullying and dealing with prejudice related incidents.
· All forms of harassment are recorded, monitored and dealt with in line with relevant school policy. Pupils, staff and parents are aware of the procedures for dealing with these and confident in their knowledge that such behaviour is always unacceptable. Staff are trained to deal effectively with prejudice related incidents.
2. / Preventing and dealing effectively with bullying and harassment
Recognising that the groups covered in this policy are more vulnerable to bullying and harassment,
:
o Communicate to pupils, parents and staff its abhorrence of all forms of bullying and harassment
o Ensure that incidents are reported and addressed swiftly and effectively
o Record, analyse and report bullying and harassment on grounds of race, gender, disability, sexual orientation etc.
/ · Clear procedures are in place to ensure that staff is able to confidently deal with all forms of bullying and harassment promptly, firmly and consistently. Actions taken are in line with relevant LA policy and guidance such as those for anti-bullying and dealing with prejudice related incidents.
· All forms of harassment are recorded, monitored and dealt with in line with relevant school policy. Pupils, staff and parents are aware of the procedures for dealing with these and confident in their knowledge that such behaviour is always unacceptable. Staff are trained to deal effectively with prejudice related incidents.
· Relevant policies are regularly reviewed and circulated. Incidents of bullying and harassment are recorded on incident sheets stored in the School office.
3 / Listening to pupils, staff, parents and others
Describe what the school does to:
o Hear the student voice
o Actively seek staff views and listen to staff concerns
o Seek the views of parents
o Ensure it encourages, enables and hears the full range of views including those with disabilities / · The school has a Pupil Parliament and holds regular meetings with representatives to elicit the wider views of the pupil body