Equality Information
Equality
at Sacred Heart Primary School
How do we comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty?
Public bodies, including schools, have a duty, under the 2010 Equality Act, to ensure that they promote equality within their organisation and this statement sets out how we try to achieve this at Sacred Heart Catholic School & Nursery. We fundamentally believe that it is the right of every person to be treated with equal dignity and respect which is integral to our school ethos and underpins all that we do.
At Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School and Nursery, we are committed to ensuring equality of opportunity for all pupils, staff, parents and carers irrespective of race, gender, disability, belief, sexual orientation, age or socio-economic background. We aim to develop a culture of inclusion and diversity in which all those connected to the school feel proud of their identity and ability to participate fully in school life.
We tackle discrimination through the positive promotion of equality, by challenging bullying and stereotypes and by creating an environment which champions respect for all.
Together, we will work towards:
a common vision
a sense of belonging for all
similar life opportunities for all
strong and positive relationships between different communities.
We believe that diversity is a strength which should be respected and celebrated by all those who learn, teach and visit us.
We aim to create a happy, safe and secure environment, where members of our school community are healthy, enjoy learning, achieve their potential, respect and value each other and themselves.
As an educationally inclusive school the teaching and learning, achievements, attitudes and well-being of every young person matters. We take into account pupils’ varied life experiences and needs, providing equal opportunities for all pupils, whatever their age, disability, race, religion or belief, gender / gender identity or socio-economic background, to ensure that every child really does matter.
We aim to develop a culture of inclusion and diversity in which success is celebrated and all those connected to the school feel proud of their identity and able to participate fully in school life. We will tackle discrimination by the positive promotion of equality and the creation of an environment which champions respect for all.
Aims
Our school aims to meet its obligations under the public sector equality duty by having due regard to the need to:
Eliminate discrimination and other conduct that is prohibited by the Equality Act 2010
Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it.
Foster good relations across all characteristics – between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it
Legislation and guidance
This document meets the requirements under the following legislation:
The Equality Act 2010, which introduced the public sector equality duty and protects people from discrimination
The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) Regulations 2011, which require schools to publish information to demonstrate how they are complying with the public sector equality duty and to publish equality objectives
This document is also based on Department for Education (DfE) guidance: The Equality Act 2010 and schools.
Roles and responsibilities
Our governors, in their work to uphold their responsibility will:
Ensure that equality information and objectives are explicit in our policies and procedures and that these are communicated clearly with all members of the school community and beyond.
Monitor, review and evaluate the effect and impact of these regularly and often (at a minimum, every four years).
Seek ways to address physical or environmental barriers that get in the way of equality and inclusion.
Work closely with the Head Teacher, delegating responsibility to her for the day to day implementation of policies and procedures and for monitoring their effectiveness.
Our head teacher will:
Promote knowledge and understanding of equality amongst staff, pupils and parents.
Monitor the effectiveness of the curriculum in promoting equality and tackling inequality in order to encourage and develop learners who are understanding, accepting, tolerant, respectful and inclusive of others
Ensure good support systems, including staffing, are in place for cohorts, groups or individuals in order to ensure that everyone has the potential to achieve highly
Put in place and monitor support mechanisms to tackle inequalities that may impact on the education and life chances of our pupils for whole cohorts, groups and individuals.
Our classroom staff will:
Teach a balanced and fair curriculum that challenges knowledge and promotes understanding.
Support every individual to achieve highly and progress well from their individual starting points.
Promote a culture of mutual trust and support where everyone feels valued, comfortable and listened to in all aspects of school life, including when sharing concerns or worries, no matter how small.
Work effectively with a range of people who support our children eg. parents, medical colleagues and education support staff, to maximise potential and to overcome barriers to progress.
Our whole staff group will:
Promote equality and inclusivity.
Lead by example
Our pupils will:
Be encouraged, taught and supported to understand one another and to accept respect and celebrate individual difference.
Be encouraged and supported to include everyone.
Be reminded of what to do if someone is unkind to another person in order to effectively support one another.
Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School & Nursery School prides itself of being a school where inclusion and equal opportunity is important, indeed central to our work with every individual. Evidence of our impact can be seen in our monitoring and assessment outcomes, including statutory assessment outcomes at the end of Key Stages, Ofsted reports, local authority visits outcomes and pupil, staff and parent questionnaires.
Examples of our compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty can be seen in, but are not limited to, the following examples:
Policies that deal with equality issues eg. Accessibility Plan, Equality Policy; SEND policy, Behaviour and Discipline Policy, Teaching and Learning Policy, our Curriculum statement.
Promotion of understanding, respect, individual liberty and tolerance in assemblies, religious education lessons and through our curriculum.
Strong and consistent Code of Conduct for Behaviour.
Equal access to the curriculum including.
Monitoring and evaluating the attainment and progress of cohorts, groups and individuals and support mechanisms and strategies to address underperformance or vulnerability.
Effective working with outside agencies such as counselling services, medical professionals and education support services.
Equal access to wider school activities such as clubs, visits and residential trips.
Charitable support and fundraising.
All school staff are expected to have regard to this document and to work to achieve the objectives as set out.
Eliminating Discrimination
The school is aware of its obligations under the Equality Act 2010 and complies with non-discrimination provisions.
Where relevant, our policies include reference to the importance of avoiding discrimination and other prohibited conduct.
Staff and governors are regularly reminded of their responsibilities under the Equality Act, for example during meetings. Where this has been discussed during a meeting it is recorded in the meeting minutes.
New staff receive training on the Equality Act as part of their induction, and all staff receive refresher training every September.
The school has a designated member of staff for monitoring equality issues, and an equality link governor. (As detailed above). They regularly liaise regarding any issues and make senior leaders and governors aware of these as appropriate.
Advancing equality of opportunity
As set out in the DfE guidance on the Equality Act, the school aims to advance equality of opportunity by:
Removing or minimising disadvantages suffered by people which are connected to a particular characteristic they have (e.g. pupils with disabilities, or pupils of different religion or race)
Taking steps to meet the particular needs of people who have a particular characteristic (e.g. enabling Muslim pupils to pray at prescribed times)
Encouraging people who have a particular characteristic to participate fully in any activities (e.g. encouraging all pupils to be involved in the full range of school societies)
In fulfilling this aspect of the duty, the school will:
Report attainment data each academic year showing how pupils with different characteristics are performing.
Analyse the above data to determine strengths and areas for improvement, implement actions in response and publish this information
Make evidence available identifying improvements for specific groups
Analyse further data about any issues associated with particular protected characteristics, identifying any issues which could affect our own pupils
Fostering good relations
he school aims to foster good relations between those who share a protected characteristic and those who do not share it by:
Promoting acceptance, friendship and understanding of a range of religions and cultures through different aspects of our curriculum. This includes teaching in RE, citizenship and personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education, but also activities in other curriculum areas. For example, as part of teaching and learning in English/reading, pupils will be introduced to literature from a range of cultures. Every Monday, Assemblies will focus on a different aspect of British Values and identify the Protected Characteristics.
Holding assemblies dealing with relevant issues. Pupils will be encouraged to take a lead in such assemblies and we will also invite external speakers to contribute.
Ensuring our curriculum has, embedded within it, a wide range of backgrounds, cultures and faiths. In addition to this, we ensure we carefully plan and provide the children with a range of groups such as refugees, homelessness and people experiencing poverty to help educate them and teach empathy to marginalized groups
Working with our local community. This includes working with our Parish, inviting leaders of local faith groups to speak at assemblies, and organising school trips and activities based around the local community. We will also actively support and work with our Kensington Fields Community Centre.
Encouraging and implementing initiatives to deal with tensions between different groups of pupils within the school. For example, our Pupil Parliament and E Safety Cadets have representatives from different year groups and are formed of pupils from a range of backgrounds. All pupils are encouraged to participate in the school’s activities, such as sports clubs. We also work with parents to promote knowledge and understanding of different cultures.
We have developed links with people and groups who have specialist knowledge about particular characteristics, which helps inform and develop our approach.
Equality considerations in decision-making
The school ensures it has due regard to equality considerations whenever significant decisions are made.
The school always considers the impact of significant decisions on particular groups. For example, when a school trip or activity is being planned, the school considers whether the trip:
Cuts across any religious holidays
Is accessible to pupils with disabilities
Has equivalent facilities for all genders
The school keeps a written record to show we have actively considered our equality duties and asked ourselves relevant questions. This is recorded at the same time as the risk assessment when planning school trips and activities. The record is completed by the member of staff organising the activity and is stored electronically with the completed risk assessment on Evolve as notes.
Monitoring arrangements
The full governing body will update the equality information we publish, at least every year.
This document will be reviewed by the full governing body annually.
This document will be approved by the full governing body.
Staff
The school adopts the Local Authority’s advice and guidance through its Human Resources policies for fair advertising, recruitment, selection, training and retention of staff. The school recognises all staff have the right to work in a safe and harassment free environment, the right to career advancement pathways and that staff have individual and collective responsibility to respect each other’s contributions regardless of age or experience, and to support the school’s ethos and principles of safeguarding within the recruitment process.
Equality in Admissions and Exclusions
Our admissions arrangements are fair and transparent and do not discriminate on the grounds of race, gender, religion, belief, disability and/or socio-economic background.
Any exclusions – fixed or permanent will follow our exclusion policy and will not discriminate on the grounds of race, gender, religion, belief, disability and/or socio-economic background.