Equality and Diversity Scheme
Incorporating all of the protected Characteristics as outlined in the Equalities Act 2010 and Public Sector Equalities Duty 2011
School’s Aims and Values
This Policy sets out our commitment to promoting equality and community cohesion and eliminating discrimination and harassment.
At Francis Barber we will continuously strive to ensure that everyone is treated with respect and dignity. Each person in our school will be given fair and equal opportunities to develop their full potential regardless of their gender, ethnicity, cultural and religious background, sexuality, disability or special educational needs and ability.
The school works actively to promote equality and foster positive attitudes and commitment to an education for equality. We will do this by:
- Treating all those within the school community (e.g. pupils, staff, parents and the community) as individuals with their own particular abilities, beliefs, challenges, attitudes, background and experience.
- Creating and maintaining a school ethos which promotes equality, develops understanding and challenges myths, stereotypes, misconceptions and prejudices.
- Encouraging everyone in our school community to gain a positive self-image and high self esteem.
- Having high expectations of everyone involved with the whole school community.
- Promoting mutual respect and valuing each other’s similarities and differences and facing equality issues openly and honestly.
- Identifying, challenging and removing all practices, procedures and customs which are discriminatory and replacing them with practices that are fair to all.
- Monitoring, evaluating and reviewing all the above to secure continuous improvement in all that we do.
Equality Legislation
This equality and diversity Policy enables Francis Barber to meet our statutory obligations set out under The Equality Act 2010 and Public Sector Equalities Duty 2011. This Legislation brings together all previous anti discrimination legislation in order to make it clearer and easy to comply with.
The Legislation places a statutory duty on us when carrying out our functions, to have due regard to:
- Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other conduct prohibited by the Act.
- Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not
- Foster good relations between those who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.
Protected characteristics in the Act are age, disability, ethnicity and race, gender, gender identity, sexual identity and orientation, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, religion and belief.
The Equality Objectives
The Act also requires that Francis Barber have an Equality Objective. Our current Equality Objective are:
- That barriers of disadvantage for pupils from all groups make good progress, and that those of average or above average ability make at least three months progress per term.
- That the staff and pupils develop understanding and tolerance towards all members of the LGBTQ+ community and be ready to accept pupils with a wider range of needs.
This objective reflects guidance given in the most recent OfSTED report and is a significant part of the School Improvement Plan.
Roles and Responsibilities
This Equality and Diversity Policy links to other specific policies and action plans that the school produces including the School Improvement Plan.
This Policy outlines the roles and responsibilities of everyone involved and connected with the PRU so that each person knows what is expected of them. Promoting equality and raising the achievement of all pupils is the responsibility of the whole PRU staff.
Introduction to this equality and diversity policy will be included in induction arrangements for all staff new to the school. School induction procedures will highlight duties implied by this Policy in the same way as child protection, health and safety and behaviour policies form part of the induction process.
- Heads and Leadership Team
will demonstrate through their personal leadership the importance of the policy. She/he will ensure that all staff are aware of the policy and understand their role and responsibilities in relation to it. Where additional funding is available for raising the achievement of specific groups of pupils, the Head Teacher will ensure that the additional resources are used appropriately. They will be targeted on the basis of identified need and outcomes are monitored. - The PRU Management Committee has agreed this Policy and will assess and monitor the impact of the Policy annually.
- All Staff All staff – will familiarise themselves with this policy and know what their responsibilities are in ensuring that it is implemented. Teachers will know the implications of the Policy for their planning, teaching and learning strategies as well as for behavioural issues.
- Pupils Pupils will be made aware of how the equality and diversity Policy applies to them. They will learn to treat each other with respect and have the confidence to report incidents to adults.
- Parents/Carers Parents and Carers will be encouraged to participate fully in implementing the equality and diversity policy within the school – particularly by reinforcing its ethos at home. Parents/Carers will be invited to comment on the Policy and will be regularly updated on progress.
Breach of the Policy
We will ensure that all members of the Management Board, staff, pupils and parents are fully aware of the content of the policy and their responsibilities under it. All Management Board, staff, pupils and parents will be expected to abide by the policy. All persons covered will be aware of their responsibility to report any action which constitutes, or could be deemed to constitute, a breach of the policy – in the first instance to the Head Teacher and or member of the senior leadership team. It will be for the Head Teacher in consultation with other relevant staff, to decide on appropriate response to any breach of the policy, depending on circumstances and seriousness. This may include amongst other actions:
- Formal or informal warnings (under the School’s Behaviour policy)
- Involvement of Management Board
- Fixed term or permanent exclusion
Monitoring, Assessing and Reviewing the Policy
We will monitor the impact of this policy on pupils, parents and staff. In particular, we will monitor the impact of our policies on the attainment levels of our pupils.
To monitor our pupils attainment we will collect information about pupils’ performance and progress, analyse it and use it to examine trends. To help interpret this information we will monitor other areas that could have an adverse impact on pupil’s attainment such as:
- Exclusion
- harassment and bullying
- Curriculum teaching and learning (including language and cultural needs) and provision for pupils with special educational needs and gifted and talented pupils.
- Punishment and reward
- Parental involvement
- Working with the community
- Support advice and guidance
Monitoring information will help us to see what progress we are making towards meeting our targets and aims. In particular it will help us to:
- Highlight any difference between pupils
- Ask why these differences exist and test explanations given
- Review the effectiveness of current targets and objectives
- Decide what further action will be necessary to meet particular needs and to improve the performance of pupils (which might include positive action)
- Rethink and set targets in relevant strategic plans
- Links will be made with Performance Management objectives which will include qualitative information as well as quantitative data
- Take action to make improvements
Harassment Policy.
Sexual, racial or disability harassment is unlawful discrimination and improper and inappropriate behaviour. It is the policy of Francis Barber PRU to provide an environment free from sexual, racial, homophobic or disability harassment and intimidation.
Harassment means unwanted conduct of a sexual or racial nature or conduct based on gender, sexual orientation, race or disability which is offensive to the recipient. It refers to behaviour which is unsolicited, that is personally offensive, and that fails to respect the rights of others.
Harassment is a form of bullying. Francis Barber PRU has a comprehensive Behaviour Policy which includes the procedures for avoiding and dealing with any incidents.
Community Cohesion
We work together with our local community to build community cohesion by promoting equality of opportunity and inclusion for different groups of pupils within our school and encouraging our pupils to actively engage with others to understand what they all hold in common.
Our activity to promote community cohesion can be grouped under the following areas:
- Teaching, learning and curriculum
- Equity and excellence
- Engagement and extended services.
Specific examples of the activity we implement to promote community cohesion include:
Teaching and curriculum provision that supports high standards of attainment, promotes common values, and builds pupils’ understanding of the diversity that surrounds them
- lessons across the curriculum in both keyworking and PSHE that promote common values and help pupils to value differences and challenge prejudice and stereotyping
- a programme of curriculum based activities whereby pupils’ understanding of community and diversity is enriched through fieldwork, visits and meetings with members of different communities. This will include Outdoor Education Activities in a variety of venues, Theatre visits, Museum and gallery visits, working with the Youth Service and an extensive programme of visits, mentoring from Future Skills
- support is available for pupils for whom English is an additional language to enable them to achieve at the highest possible level in English.
Equity and excellence
- a focus on securing high standards of attainment for all pupils from all ethnic backgrounds and of different socio-economic status
- effective approaches in place to deal with incidents of prejudice, bullying and harassment
Engagement and extended services
School to school:
Arrangements for Dual Registration to offer pupils the opportunity to reintegrate into the whole range of Wandsworth schools.
Links with specialist services at other schools e.g. Speech and Language provision at Garratt Park School: links with autistic units
Shared use of facilities to provide a means for pupils to interact e.g. R2S and a variety of Youth Clubs
School to parents and the community:
- working with community representatives, for example by bringing community representatives into school to work with pupils
- strong links and multi-agency working between the school and other local agencies, such as the youth support service, the police and social care and health professional
Assessing the impact of policies
We will continue to assess the effectiveness of our policies through existing arrangements for developing and reviewing other school policies. The main question for assessing the impact of all our school’s policies -giving special attention to pupils’ attainment levels-will include the following:
- Do we help all our pupils to achieve as much as they can, and get the most from what is on offer, based on their individual needs?
- Which groups of pupils are not achieving as much as they can? Why not?
- How do we explain any differences? Are the explanations justified?
- Does each relevant policy include aims to deal with pupil attainment differences between pupils? Do our policy aims lead to action to deal with differences that have been identified (for example, extra coaching for pupils, or steps to prevent bullying)?
- What are we doing to raise standards and promote equality of opportunity for pupils who seem to be underachieving and who may need extra support?
- Can any action we take be traced back to individual policy aims and related targets and strategies?
- Is the action taken appropriate and effective? Are there any unexpected results? If so how are they being handled?
- Does each relevant policy include aims to promote equality and harmony, prevent or challenge discrimination?
- Does each relevant policy’s aims lead to effective action?
- What changes does the school need to make to relevant policies, their aims and any related targets and strategies?
To answer these questions we will consider the following:
- Collecting and analysing relevant monitoring and other data
- Talking to parents, pupils and staff to find out their needs and opinions
- Carrying out surveys or special research
We will use the results of these assessments to:
- Rethink our equality aims, targets and strategies
- Influence and guide their planning and decision making
Involvement in the development of the Equality and Diversity Scheme
Making the Scheme Available
The Scheme is widely available both within the school community and in the wider community so that all the Governors, staff, pupils and parents/carers are aware of it and its contents.
- The Scheme was formally approved at a management Committee meeting
- Equality and diversity is regularly discussed with pupils and the principles of the Scheme are embodied in the curriculum.
- The Scheme is available in alternative formats on request.
November 2018
