Equality, Diversity and Community Cohesion Framework for Kirklees Schools

How do you make this new framework a reality in your school?

Introducing a new Equality, Diversity and Cohesion Policy and Strategy Framework for Schools

The underachievement of black and minority ethnic children and young people and their over representation in exclusions, disciplinary actions, and poor attendance are good examples of racial inequality. Since 2002 schools have been required by law to put into place race equality policies and implementation plans. In other words a strong statement of intent linked closely to a strategic action plan that together would assist schools in addressing such inequalities.
Schools are now required by law to build upon their race equality policies by including statements of intent and strategic plans that promote equality for disabled children and young people; girls and boys, and young men and young women. Promoting equality means reviewing policies and procedures, collecting data to ensure that all groups in school have equal access to the curriculum, and assessing the impact of the things that you do to identify unmet need and avoiding potentially discriminatory outcomes.
This guidance helps you build a new Equality, Diversity and Cohesion Policy and Strategy Framework. It has a sample policy - your statement of intent. The sample strategymakes strong links to Evaluating Equalities Version 2 for assessing the impact of policies and reviewing and monitoring subsequent changes to establish progress. For example, you may revisit the anti-bullying part of your behaviour policy and make it explicit that disabled children are protected from bullying because of their disability. You will want to review any changes you make to your policy and ask disabled children themselves to see if it is working. Where there are clear issues emerging for pupils and parents in this area you will also want to look at your curriculum planning mechanisms and policies and check if they include attitudes towards disabled people, disabled people's rights, etc. You'll also need to report back on outcomes, and how they have been achieved, on a regular basis as well.
Many of your stakeholders will have varying and diverse needs and your use of Evaluating Equalities will help you identify these. But a generic approach that this new framework encourages allows you to identify commonalities of inequality - bullying experienced by black and disabled pupils, for example, needs challenging, recording and reporting in similar ways.
Moreover, this framework has been designed to make mainstreaming equality a reality. Your Equality, Diversity and Cohesion Policy will allow your school community to have a clear understanding of your school's 'statement of intent' and 'ethos'. Your Equality, Diversity and Cohesion Strategywill be the 'hub' of how you are going to promote equality and involve all groups across your school community with your School Improvement Plan demonstrating the actions and targets that will help you work towards your shared vision.

Leadership and governance in implementing the new framework

Leadership of this strategy framework and the subsequent implementation of the duty to promote equality is fundamental to the elimination of discrimination in schools. Governors and senior staff need to be champions of the agenda and make this visible throughout the school community.
Since the introduction of the duty to promote race equality in 2002, the 'promotion' of equality has often been underplayed by schools and of equality activity is essential to gauge how a school's leadership team promote equality and tackle discrimination.
Schools will be undertaking self-evaluation linked to the OFSTED self-evaluation form (SEF) and Framework. The OFSTED Framework (2005) encompasses a strong emphasis on inclusion and equalities and the new strategy framework, combined with the Learning Service Guidance Evaluating Equalities Version 2, will enable governors and senior managers to demonstrate their overall effectiveness and efficiency of leadership and management in relation to addressing equality.
There is a section within Evaluating Equalities that asks how well equality of opportunity is promoted and discrimination tackled so that all learners achieve their potential. Some of the expanded criteria include how clear governors and staff are about their statutory duties in relation to equalities. It asks whether governors have polices on SEN, race equality, disability and gender and how they promote equalities in their work with the school.
Putting Evaluating Equalities Version 2 at the heart of you Equality, Diversity and Cohesion Strategy directly promotes equality. The strategy itself places the moral dimension of schooling as central to the education process, particularly if rights are a feature of the strategy. Does this then have an impact on how the school is led and managed - e.g. development of trust, participation, decision-making, inter-relationships, work/life balance, etc? Does this contribute to overall effectiveness?

Reporting racist and other bullying incidents

Kirklees schools have been required to record and report racist incidents to the local authority and governors since 2000. Such reporting can help governors identify specific types of incident and therefore contribute to the school's self-assessment and planning processes. The local authority uses the information to plan to take steps to prevent and address such incidents and has a duty to pass on aggregated information about racist incidents to central government for the same purposes on a regional and national basis.
Statistics over past years show a massive under reporting of racist incidents by all schools and amongst high schools in particular. As bullying and other hurtful behaviour manifests itself in many cases around a range of inequalities, your Equality, Diversity and Cohesion Framework will provide a focus to tackle these issues and make 'being safe' in school a reality for all children. For example, your strategy will allow you to set annual targets to collect racist and other incident reports. An increase in reporting will help you get a better feel for the real level of racist and other incidents and you will then be able to set targets that see the 'true' picture reduce over time.
A new database - Kirklees Bullying and Incident Reporting Database (K-BAIRD) will be available in all schools over the coming months. It will promote a new policy and procedure that will encourage schools to report not just incidents relating to racism, but will be expanded to cover sexism, sexuality (including sexual orientation), disability, religion or belief and other bullying behaviours. All these incidents are seen by young people as bullying and the database has been designed with the experiences of children and young people in mind.
It is unrealistic for a school to expect that racist comments or other hurtful incidents will never be made. A nil return from a school (there is a high proportion in Kirklees) might imply that pupils are not confident about reporting or school staff have not understood or not accepted the seriousness of racist/other incidents or bullying that cause offence and distress.
Leadership and governance is critical. The reporting of incidents to the Governing body and the local authority not only promotes equality and meets the a school's legislative duties but builds confidence within school communities that such incidents are being dealt with and assists the local authority to plan strategically to develop long term interventions to work together with schools in tackling these behaviours.

Accessibility Planning

All Children's Services Authorities have a legal duty to develop and implement an Accessibility Strategy that aims to:

increase the extent to which disabled pupils can participate in the schools' curriculum: i.e. access to the curriculum
improve the physical environment of schools to increase the extent to which disabled pupils are able to access education and associated services offered by the schools; i.e. physical access
improve the delivery to disabled pupils of information which is provided in writing for pupils who are not disabled: i.e. access to written information

The law also requires Governing Bodies of maintained schools to prepare an accessibility plan which covers the same three areas as outlined above. Schools' accessibility plans or access plans must be written plans which, over the period that they cover, must be kept under review by governing bodies and revised as necessary.
Your Access or Accessibility Plan will inform the majority of your disability equality intentions. Although the new duty to promote disability equality is a much wider requirement where other school users and employees need recognition, this planning mechanism will become a central feature of your new legal requirements.
The duty to promote disability equality will require schools to move beyond planning in relation to physical access to and around buildings towards prioritising communication and curriculum accessibility, in particular for disabled parents, visitors, and other users e.g. those disabled people who want to attend and access the services of extended schools and children's centres.
The authority's Accessibility Strategy has a commitment to an approved Capital Programme of work targeting the allocation of Schools Access Initiative Funding to improve access to schools and promote the development of inclusive learning environments which benefit all members of the school community and enable access for all. The strategy is kept under review during the period to which it relates. The authority is also charged with having regard in the development of the accessibility strategy in the need to allocate adequate resources for its implementation.

Understanding the SEN/Disability distinction

Understanding this distinction is crucial for schools to effectively promote disability equality. The Education Act 1996 says that 'a child has special educational needs if he or she has a learning difficulty which calls for special educational provision to be made for him or her'. It also says that a disability, that prevents or hinders a child from accessing education, amounts to a learning difficulty if it calls for special educational provision to be made. Special educational provision is made within the SEN framework, including, in some cases, a statement of special educational need. All schools should have an up to date SEN policy.
The SEN framework is there to identify and meet any additional educational needs. The duties under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 2005 are there to ensure that disabled pupils are not discriminated against: they seek to promote equality between disabled and non-disabled pupils.
Many children who have SEN will also be defined as being disabled under the DDA. However, not all children who are defined as disabled under the DDA will have SEN. For example, those with severe asthma, arthritis, HIV or diabetes may not have SEN, but may have rights including reasonable adjustments, under the DDA. Similarly, there may be some children with SEN who will not be able to be defined as having a disability under the Disability Discrimination Act.
It may be helpful to assume that all emotional and behavioural difficulty could be considered as a disability rather than to make the diagnosed and undiagnosed distinction. Whether a child with an emotional and behavioural difficulty is or is not disabled under the terms of the DDA would only be determined through tribunal case law.
So that schools are able to assess impact in relation to disability, data will need to be gathered locally before the DFES introduce a disability (as opposed to an SEN) category. The following DDA definition will help you determine which pupils in your school are potentially covered by the new legislation (remember at the same time that schools have an 'anticipatory duty to make reasonable adjustments'):
The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) protects disabled people. The Act sets out the circumstances in which a person is "disabled". It says you are disabled if you have:

a mental or physical impairment
this has an adverse effect on your ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities
the adverse effect is substantial - the adverse effect is long-term (meaning it has lasted for 12 months, or is likely to last for more than 12 months or for the rest of your life).
There are some special provisions, for example:
if your disability has badly affected your ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities, but doesn't any more, it will still be counted as having that effect if it is likely to do so again
if you have a progressive condition such as HIV or multiple sclerosis or arthritis, and it will badly affect your ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities in the future, it will be treated as having a bad effect on you now
past disabilities are also covered

What are "normal day-to-day activities"?
At least one of these areas must be badly affected:

mobility
manual dexterity
physical co-ordination
continence
ability to lift, carry or move everyday objects
speech, hearing or eyesight
memory or ability to concentrate, learn or understand
understanding of the risk of physical danger.

It's really important to think about the effect of a disability without treatment. The Act says that any treatment or correction should not be taken into account, including medical treatment or the use of a prosthesis or other aid (for example, a hearing aid). The only things which are taken into account are glasses or contact lenses. The important thing is to work out exactly how a disability affects an individual.
What does not count as a disability?
Certain conditions are not considered impairments under the DDA:

lifestyle choices such as tattoos and non-medical piercings
tendency to steal, set fires, and physical or sexual abuse of others
exhibitionism and voyeurism
hayfever, if it doesn't aggravate the effects of an existing condition
addiction to or a dependency on alcohol, nicotine or any other substance, other than the substance being medically prescribed

Advice and support will be offered to schools to develop processes to collect this data before the DfES introduces a disability category.

How does this new framework affect your existing 'equality' policies?

Policies that will be directly affected and will change are your equal opportunity policy and your race equality policy.
Through the adoption of this framework your
Equal Opportunity Policy will become your Equality, Diversity and Cohesion Policy.
Your Race Equality policy will become part of your Equality, Diversity and Cohesion Policy. This generic approach helps you avoid having separate policy statements e.g. Disability Equality Policy, Gender Equality Policy, etc, and helps you develop common policy statements across the equality strands. For example all bullying is unacceptable - that includes racist, sexist, disability related and homophobic.
It is still important to update and review your SEN policy regularly. An SEN policy that addresses specific contents is required in law, but it needs to operate in conjunction with and link directly to your new Equality, Diversity and Cohesion Policy and strategy. Important links to your SEN policy will include pupil participation, resource allocation and curriculum access. Some of the outcomes of how these aspects are reflected in your school practice and the steps you need to take to develop them link directly to the disability dimensions of your strategy.

Creating a diverse workforce in schools and the duty to promote equality?

In relation to employment, the specific duties to promote equality require all schools to:

monitor staff in post by ethnicity, disability, and gender
supply the LA with data, via the web based e-form, about all applicants, shortlisted applicants and successful applicants for internal and external posts.
monitor the retention of disabled staff and the response to the duty to make reasonable adjustments
monitor and review access to training and development opportunities by ethnicity, gender and disability (this is currently being managed by the authority through monitoring carried out through INSET)
provide reports to Governors for approval and discussion on action required in relation to the above activities on a termly basis.

The e-form that you currently use to share equality monitoring data about your workforce demonstrates a commitment to promote equality across the whole school community. The e-form was originally developed to enable both the authority and its schools to comply with the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 and the duty to promote race equality.
A redesigned e-form now enables you to share ethnicity, gender, age, and disability data quickly and easily. You can now share data about all applicants for a post, those short listed and the candidate appointed. It also includes a section where you can share data about applicants for internal promotions within your school.