Equality Information and Objectives

Joseph Hood Primary School Equality Information and Objectives

2019-2023

 

 

Contents

1. Aims................................................................................................................ 3

2. Legislation and guidance....................................................................................... 3

3. Roles and responsibilities...................................................................................... 3

4. Eliminating discrimination...................................................................................... 4

5. Advancing equality of opportunity........................................................................... 4

6. Fostering good relations....................................................................................... 5

7. Equality considerations in decision-making................................................................ 5

8. Equality objectives............................................................................................... 5

9. Monitoring arrangements...................................................................................... 6

10. Links with other policies...................................................................................... 6

 

1. Aims

Our school aims to meet its obligations under the public sector equality duty by having due regard to the need to:

• Eliminate unlawful  discrimination, harassment, victimisation  and any other conduct 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

 

Joseph Hood Primary School and Nursery is an inclusive school where we focus on the well-being and progress of every child and where all members of our community are of equal worth.

We believe that the Equality Act provides a framework to support our commitment to valuing diversity, tackling discrimination, promoting equality and fostering good relationships between people. It also ensures that we continue to tackle issues of disadvantage and underachievement of different groups.

 

1. 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. 

Academies, including free schools, if applicable, add/amend: This document also complies with our funding agreement and articles of association.

3. Roles and responsibilities

The governing board will:

• Ensure that the equality information and objectives as set out in this statement are published and communicated throughout the school, including to staff, pupils and parents, and that they are reviewed and updated at least once every four years
• Delegate responsibility for monitoring the achievement of the objectives on a daily basis to the headteacher

 

The equality link governor is Claire Alder She will:

• Meet with the designated member of staff for equality every half term and other relevant staff members, to discuss any issues and how these are being addressed
• Ensure they’re familiar with all relevant legislation and the contents of this document
• Attend appropriate equality and diversity training

Report back to the full governing board regarding any issues

The headteacher will:

• Promote knowledge and understanding of the equality objectives amongst staff and pupils
• Monitor success in achieving the objectives and report back to governors

 

The designated member of staff for equality is Alice Hargrave. She will:

• Support the headteacher in promoting knowledge and understanding of the equality objectives amongst staff and pupils
• Meet with the equality link governor every half term to raise and discuss any issues
• Support the headteacher in identifying any staff training needs, and deliver training as necessary

 

All school staff are expected to have regard to this document and to work to achieve the objectives as set out in section 8.

1. Eliminating discrimination

We are committed to working for equality for all our staff, parents/carers and children to meet our duties under the Equality Act 2010 and complies with non-discrimination provisions.

 

We eliminate discrimination by:

• Adoption of the single Equality Scheme
• Our behaviour policy ensures that all children feel safe at school and addresses prejudicial bullying
• Reporting, responding to and monitoring all racist and homophobic incidents
• Regularly monitoring the curriculum to ensure that the curriculum meets the needs of our pupils and that it promotes respect for diversity and challenges negative stereotyping
• Teaching is of the highest quality to ensure children reach their potential and all pupils are given equal entitlement to success
• Tracking pupil progress to ensure that all children make rapid progress, and intervening when necessary
• Ensuring that all pupils have the opportunity to access extra-curricular provision
• Listening to and monitoring views and experiences of pupils and adults to evaluate the effectiveness of our policies and procedures.
• Our RSHE programme of work  which ensures that children are taught about
  • Families and people who care for me
  • Caring friendships
  • Respectful relationships
  • Online relationships
  • Being safe

 

 

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. They regularly liaise regarding any issues and make senior leaders and governors aware of these as appropriate.

 

5. Advancing equality of opportunity

As set out in the DfE guidance on the Equality Act, the school aims to advance equality of opportunity by:

 

• Using the information we gather to identify underachieving groups or individuals and plan targeted intervention

 

• Removing or minimising disadvantages suffered by people which are connected to a particular characteristic they have (e.g. pupils with disabilities, or gay pupils who are being subjected to homophobic bullying)

 

• 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)

 

• Listening to parents/carers

 

• Listening to pupils at all times

 

In fulfilling this aspect of the duty, the school will:

• Publish 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 (e.g. declines in incidents of homophobic or transphobic bullying)

 

• Publish further data about any issues associated with particular protected characteristics, identifying any issues which could affect our own pupils

6. Fostering good relations

The school aims to foster good relations between those who share a protected characteristic and those who do not share it by:

• Promoting tolerance, 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 (RSHE) 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

 

• Holding assemblies and special days dealing with relevant issues. Pupils will be encouraged to take a lead in such assemblies/days and we will also invite external speakers to contribute

 

• Working with our local community. This includes inviting leaders of local faith groups to speak at assemblies, and organising school trips and activities based around the local community
• Encouraging and implementing initiatives to deal with tensions between different groups of pupils within the school. For example, our school council has representatives from different year groups and is 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

7. 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 boys and girls

The school keeps a written record (known as an Equality Impact Assessment) 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. 

 

8. Equality objectives

At Joseph Hood Primary School and Nursery, we are committed to ensuring equality of education and opportunity for all pupils, staff, parents and carers, irrespective of race, gender, disability, belief, religion or socio-economic background.

Objective 1: Improve pupils’ understanding of and respect for people who are different to themselves.

Why we have chosen this objective:

As a school who sees its diversity as a source of strength and a source of pride we want to be proactive in promoting positive relations between members of our diverse school community.

To achieve this objective we plan to:

Create opportunities for our pupils to learn directly from people and groups who have specialist knowledge and/or direct experience of protected characteristics from the Equality act in order to promote increased understanding and respect. This is linked to our RSHE scheme of work and our wider curriculum.

Progress we are making towards this objective:

 

 

Objective 2: Remove disadvantage for those with protected characteristics-disability and gender.

Why we have chosen this objective:

There is a significant gap between the progress and attainment of pupils with disabilities/SEN support pupils in writing compared to the non-SEN support group. In 2019 KS2 SATS progress scores were  -9.85 for SEN support/pupils with disabilities compared to   -0.46 for school overall. In 2018, the progress score for SEN support pupils/pupils with disabilities was +0.67 and +3.92 for the school overall. Although our SEN support pupils performed better than the national, there was still a gap.

Although we have closed the gap by 5.8% since 2016-17, the gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged higher standard still exists in the 2019 SATS results. It should be noted that the school disadvantaged group of pupils scored 4.4% higher than national figures. 

To achieve this objective we plan to:

Ensure the pupil progress meetings identify SEN support pupils/those with disabilities who are not making expected progress and allocate resources accordingly-target these pupils with the Write Away intervention. SLT to monitor the provision for these pupils in class drop-ins. SENCO to work with staff targeting these pupils-reviewing planning and provision.

Ensure the pupil progress meetings identify higher ability disadvantaged pupils who are not making expected progress and allocate resources accordingly. SLT to monitor the provision and expectations of disadvantaged pupils to ensure there is a match between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils.

 

Progress we are making towards this objective:

 

Objective 3 :  Increase the representation of teachers from local minority ethnic communities over a 4-year period (from this July to July in 4 years' time), so that this group increases from 11% to 22% of the teaching workforce.

 

Why we have chosen this objective:

We have chosen this objective because our school has a very culturally diverse population and yet this is not represented amongst our teaching staff.

We have worked hard over the last 4 year to increase the number of male teachers within our school and now 33% of teaching staff are male.

Our governing body membership has 33% from culturally diverse backgrounds.

 

 

 

 

To achieve this objective we plan to:

Ensure are staff recruitment reaches a wider profile of people. One way to achieve this is to use other platforms to advertise teaching posts-i.e. not just Eteach. The headteacher will also continue to attend college recruitment fairs as a Merton representative.

 

Progress we are making towards this objective:

 

9. Monitoring arrangements

The Governors will update the equality information we publish, [described in sections 4-7 above] at least every year.

This document will be reviewed and approved by the full governing body at least every 4 years.

10. Links with other policies

This document links to the following policies:

• Accessibility plan
• Risk assessments
• RSHE programme  

 

 

 

Approved by Joseph Hood Governing Body: 10^th October 2019

Review: Autumn term 2021