The Equality Act 2010 has created the ‘Public Sector Equality Duty’ which states that every public body, including schools and academies, have a legal duty to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who share and do not share the following protected characteristics:

• race
• age
• pregnancy or maternity
• disability
• religion or belief
• gender
• gender identity
• sexual orientation
• marriage or civil partnership

As part of our duties we publish:

• an Equalities Information profile of our school based upon the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010  – this is updated and published every year
• our school’s Equality Objectives – these are reviewed annually and updated at least once every 4 years.
• Please view our Equalities Information profile and Objectives here in our Policies

• for further information please view or download our Equalities Policy  in the School Policies section of our website.

Assisting schools and academies to comply with this legal duty, ‘Educate & Celebrate’ is a national initiative designed to prepare children and young people for life and to give them a good understanding of how Equality and Diversity is protected by the Equality Act 2010.

The approaches used in ‘Educate and Celebrate’ have been recognised by Ofsted as best practice for taking a whole school approach to teaching equality. The programme provides positive relationships and understanding. It is based around a set of stories about different families, relationships and gender identities.

We are proud to say that we received the Silver Award for Educate and Celebrate Best Practice Status.

For further information please visit the Educate and Celebrate website www.educateandcelebrate.org.

Promoting Equality

In order to promote a positive attitude to school, staff continually monitor their own classroom practice to ensure fairness of contact, spending as much time as possible interacting with all children, including those with SEND, and regardless of age, disability, gender, race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation and ability.

A range of suitably differentiated activities is offered within the planned work so that every child, from the least able to the more able, is stretched and challenged. Equality of accessing the curriculum is also assured for children for whom English is a new or additional language.

In our school children may work in small groups on activities which support work taught within the classroom. Children of all abilities will have the opportunity to work in small groups on focused tasks.

In order to provide all children in our care with full access to the National Curriculum and the wider curriculum, we will ensure that:-

Children’s special educational needs, whether through learning difficulties or disabilities, are identified, assessed and provided for.
Parents are fully involved, at all stages, regarding provision for their child’s special needs.

Use is made of all agencies which may be able to assist in the identification and assessment of a child’s special needs.
Our allocation of time for consultation with the Educational Psychologist is extremely limited.

Our Special Needs Co-ordinator (SENCo), Mrs Oxnard works closely with teachers and teaching assistants, supporting small groups and individuals.