Equalities Statement

Equalities Principles

Our vision is to create a school where students strive to ensure everyone feels valued and respected and our ethos brings together our children, community, staff and parents to provide a safe and nurturing environment for all.

Equality Act 2010

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 principle 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
  • ethnicity
  • gender
  • gender reassignment
  • maternity and pregnancy
  • religion and belief, and
  • sexual identity
  • Marriage and Civil Partnership (for employees)

We endeavor to annually review what we are doing as a school community to meet these duties, to do this we will collect data related to the protected characteristics above and analyse this data to determine our focus for our equality objectives.  The data will be assessed across our core provisions as a school, this will include the following functions:

  • Admissions
  • Attendance
  • Attainment
  • Exclusions
  • Prejudice related incidents

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.

Equality Objectives

1. To ensure that all staff and governors are aware of current legislation relating to equality and diversity and that all governors and staff understand the Academy's responsibility in this area

2. To monitor and analyse pupil achievement by race, gender and special educational needs or disability and act on any trends or patterns in the data that require additional support for pupils

3. To promote cultural understanding and awareness and tolerance of different beliefs between different ethnic groups within our academy and broader communities

4. To raise levels of parental and pupil engagement in learning and academy life, across all activities, including regular attendance to ensure equity and fairness in access and engagement. We will aim to raise aspirations among children and parents and raise awareness of career options for all children, challenging gender stereotypes

5. To promote mental health awareness and develop appropriate interventions where  necessary

6. Close gaps in progress between all groups of pupils, ensure rates of progress for other groups such as pupils with special educational needs and disabilities and any looked after children

7. Monitor the incidence of the use of homophobic, sexist and racist language by pupils in our academy

8. To annually review, revise and develop the curriculum so that it represents a diverse culture and society and encourages tolerance and respect