Parsloes Primary School

Equalities Policy

Equalities Mission Statement

We are committed to ensure equality of educational opportunity and support for all pupils, parents, carers and staff irrespective of sex, race, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation, pregnancy, gender reassignment and socio-economic background. We aim to provide a fully inclusive school in which every person feels proud of their identity and able to participate fully within the school community. We believe that a diverse school community is a strength which should be respected and celebrated by all those who learn, teach and visit here.

Implementing the Equality Mission Statement

Providing High Quality Teaching and Learning

We aim to ensure that every pupil makes good progress and achieves well by:

Using fully inclusive teaching and learning approaches to engage all our pupils.
Monitoring achievement data by ethnicity, gender and disability and intervening decisively when required.
The rigorous analysis of pupils’ progress to determine and inform the strategies we will use support to groups of pupils and individuals.
Setting challenging targets for all pupils.
Using teaching resources which avoid stereotyping and reflect the diversity of the school and local community in terms of race, gender and disability.
Promoting attitudes and values that challenge all discriminatory behaviour and prejudices.
Providing pupils with opportunities to celebrate their own and others cultures.
Seeking the positive involvement of all parents / carers in their child’s education.
Encouraging discussion of equality issues which reflect social stereotypes, expectations and their impact upon learning.

The Central Role of All School Staff (Teaching and Support Staff)

School staff will implement the school’s Single Equality Plan by ensuring that all pupils are treated fairly, equally and with respect. Pupils will also be expected to treat adults and each other with the same fairness, equality and respect.

Acts of harassment and victimisation are unacceptable and will not be tolerated within the school community. Staff will actively identify and challenge all forms of prejudice, stereotyping, victimisation and harassment.

All school staff will deal appropriately with any incidents of prejudice, harassment or victimisation. Serious incidents of prejudiced behaviour, harassment or victimisation will be recorded and reported to the Headteacher.

The Role of the Headteacher

The Headteacher has overall responsibility for the implementation of the school’s Equality Plan and will ensure that all members of staff are aware of the Equality Plan and that these guidelines are applied fairly in all situations.

The Headteacher is responsible for promoting equality of opportunity within the curriculum and wider school community and will treat all incidents of prejudice, stereotyping, victimisation and harassment with due seriousness.

The Role of School Governors
The school governing body will set out its commitment to equal opportunities by:

Ensuring that the School Equalities Plan is consulted upon, published and regularly reviewed.
Welcoming all applications to join the school from potential pupils or members of staff, regardless of their sex, race, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation, pregnancy, gender reassignment and socio-economic background.
Ensuring that no pupil or member of staff is discriminated against, whilst in school on account of their race, sex, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, pregnancy or maternity.
Books, workcards, equipment and other resources will be checked to see that they are non-stereotyping.
aking all reasonable steps to ensure that the school environment gives access to all people with disabilities, and by striving to make all school communications and activities as inclusive as possible for parents, carers and pupils.
Taking all reasonable steps to ensure that there is no unlawful behaviour in respect of equality including discrimination, harassment and victimisation.
Ensuring that all reasonable adjustments are made as necessary for pupils, staff and parents who have a disability in accordance with the Equality Act 2010.

It is a requirement that the development of the school equalities plan and the actions within it have been informed by the input of staff, pupils and parents and carers. We achieve this by using:

Feedback from the annual parent questionnaire, parents’ evening.
Input from staff surveys or through staff meetings and training.
Feedback from the school ambassadors, PSHE lessons, whole school surveys on children’s attitudes to self and school.
Issues raised during annual reviews or reviews of progress on individual education plans and mentoring and support sessions.
Feedback from Governing body meetings / Governor sub-committees.

Review of progress and impact

Our School Equality Plan has been agreed by our Governing body. In line with legislative requirements, we will review progress against our Equality Plan annually and review the entire plan and accompanying action plan on a three year cycle.

Publishing the plan

In order to meet the statutory requirements to publish a Single Equality Scheme and we will:

Publish our plan on the school website.
Raise awareness of the plan through the school newsletter, assemblies, staff meetings and other communications.
Make paper copies available for all interested parties.

Date Agreed by Governing Body: 29th February 2012

Date agreed by staff: 5th March 2012

Review Date: March 2013

Parsloes School Equalities Action Plan

The duty to report racist incidents and the publication of the Equality Plan to meet the Equality Legislation are included in the action plan below.

Objective(s)

Action(s)

How will the impact of the action be monitored?

Person(s) responsible

Timescales

Success Indicators

Establish effective systems to communicate the school’s equality duties

*must be included

Disseminate the School Equality Plan through the school website, newsletter, staff meetings.

Include questions relating to the School Equality Plan in the annual survey of parents.

Discussion with pupils during school council / circle time.

Headteacher

Staff are familiar with the principles of the Equality Plan and use them when planning lessons, creating class room displays.

Parents show awareness aware of the equality plan.

To ensure that all pupils make progress including vulnerable groups and individuals.

Monitor and analyse pupils’ achievement by race, gender and disability (and other relevant vulnerable groups) and act on any trends or patterns in the data that require additional interventions and support.

Analyse assessment data to judge the success of the planned interventions and support.

SLT

Termly

Analysis of teacher assessments / annual data demonstrates the performance gap is beginning to narrow for vulnerable groups.

That there are sufficient opportunities within the school’s curriculum to address equalities issues.

Ensure that the curriculum promotes role models whom pupils may identify positively with and that these reflect the school’s diversity in terms of race, gender and disability.

Increase in pupils’ participation, confidence and achievement.

Curriculum leaders

Increasing participation and confidence of targeted groups.

Ensure that disabled pupils are fully represented.

Recognise and celebrate the achievements of disabled pupils and ensure participation in school activities.

Closely monitor the progress and achievement of every disabled child.

Ensure that challenging targets are set for disabled children.

Analysis of school rewards profile.

Assessment and tracking data.

Progress towards meeting targets.

SLT

Achievements increasingly recognised and celebrated.

Progress towards targets is good / targets met or exceeded.

Ensure the school community celebrates our diversity and all pupils achievements are recognised.

Closely monitor those who are receiving awards, and evaluate according to gender, race and SEN/D.

Create new display boards for pupils awards.

Monitor who is achieving awards and what for.

Co-leaders for behaviour.

Every pupil in the school has achieved an award over this academic year.

All pupils are encouraged to make a positive contribution to the life of the school community.

Actively promote and recruit vulnerable groups of pupils or individuals to participate in playground leaders, House Ambassadors, assemblies, fund raising activities, presentations and after school clubs.

Review Anti-Bullying Policy

Analysis of participation rates.

Overall increasing participation rates including vulnerable groups / individuals.

Respond promptly and appropriately to all incidents of racist behaviour, victimisation and harassment.

*must be included

Ensure that the procedures for dealing with such incidents are established and widely understood and that staff and pupils are clear about their responsibilities.

Report incidents to the governing body and local authority.

Use the data to access the impact of the school’s response to incidents i.e. have whole school / year group approaches led to a decrease in incidents, can repeat perpetrators be identified, are pupils and parents satisfied with the response?

Headteacher / Governing body

School staff respond quickly and appropriately to all instances of racism, victimisation and harassment.

Nil reporting is challenged by the Governing.

Decreasing frequency of incidents.

Parsloes Primary School : Statutory Policies: School Single Equality Scheme: February 2012