North Downs Primary School is committed to equality and valuing diversity, and actively supports practices that promote genuine equality of opportunity for all staff and children.
We recognise our obligations under the Equality Act 2010 and are committed to promoting the equality and diversity of all those we work with especially our employees, pupils, young people and visitors. We oppose all forms of unlawful and unfair discrimination, bullying and harassment and will make every effort to comply with the requirements of the Act and its subsequent provisions.
We comply with the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014 and make our curriculum accessible for those with disabilities or special educational needs.
We aim to meet our obligations under the public sector equality duty by having due regard to the need to:
• eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other conduct that is prohibited by the Equality Act 2010;
• advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it; and
• foster good relations across all characteristics – between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it.
PROMOTING THE NINE PROTECTED CHARACTERISTICS
We strive to ensure our children understand that there are no outsiders at North Downs: We are all different but everyone gets treated the same, no matter how we look or think.
The Equality Act became law in 2010. It covers everyone in Britain and protects people from discrimination, harassment and victimisation. Everyone in Britain is protected. This is because the Equality Act protects people against discrimination because of the protected characteristics that we all have. Under the Equality Act, there are nine Protected Characteristics:
- Age
- Disability
- Gender reassignment
- Race
- Religion or belief
- Marriage or civil partnership
- Sex
- Sexual orientation
- Pregnancy and maternity
Under the Equality Act you are protected from discrimination:
- When you are in the workplace
- When you use public services like healthcare (for example, visiting your doctor or local hospital) or education (for example, at your school or college)
- When you use businesses and other organisations that provide services and goods (like shops, restaurants, and cinemas)
- When you use transport
- When you join a club or association (for example, your local rugby club)
- When you have contact with public bodies like your local council or government departments
The 9 Protected Characteristics are actively promoted in school through:
- Our school vision and aims, SDP, and SEF
- Our school core values
- Our school behaviour policy
- Conscious role modelling by all adults in the school community
- Active engagement and communication with parents and carers
- Assemblies
- The promotion of British values in school life
- Developing a love of reading through a range of authors and genres
- Discussion within curriculum subjects, taking a cross-curricular approach, for example when we learn about Black History month and when we learn about relationships in RSE
- Promoting articulation by building appropriate language and a coherent vocabulary
- Personal, Social, Health and Economic education (PSHE) sessions
- Religious Education (RE) lessons and RSE lessons
- Sporting competitions
- Art projects and visits
- School Council
- Educational experiences and visits
- Learning outside the classroom
- Guest speakers
- Developing links with the local community
- Extra-curricular activities, after-school clubs, charity work and work within the local community
- Safer recruitment, retention and staff development
We collect and analyse the following data to assess the impact of our Single Equality Policy. The data is recorded on our CPOMs system and the main areas we assess are:
- Admissions
- Attendance
- Exclusions
- Outcomes
- Racial incidents
- Bullying incidents
- Homophobic incidents
- Any other prejudice related incidents
We champion diversity and inclusion and embed the Protected Characteristics into the whole school ethos at North Downs by:
- Delivering whole school assemblies linked to diversity and equality, promoting the protective characteristics including high quality texts which promote diversity and inclusion
- Reading and discussing picture books and stories encouraging respect and developing understanding of diversity.
- Adopting a differentiated and adapted learning experience and environment for those with special educational needs and disabilities- supported by robust inclusion, equality and diversity policies and practices.
- Developing children’s self-esteem, self-knowledge, self-confidence and resilience
- Understanding and celebrating differences and acknowledged the strengths of others
- Embedding a culture of respect for democracy and support for participation in the democratic process e.g. school council
- Using restorative approaches to support children to take responsibility for their own behaviour and to teach children to make good choices
- Teaching children to have respect for their own and other cultures. We are a multiculturally diverse school and celebrate all main festivals such as Christmas, Diwali and Eid and have an annual International week. We teach children that difference should not be the cause of prejudicial or discriminatory behaviour
- Promoting an understanding of how we can all contribute positively to school and home life and to the lives of our local community
- Having an understanding of Equality, Human Rights and Protected Characteristics, which is developed through staff CPD
- An understanding that we have the freedom to choose and hold other faiths and beliefs is protected in law e.g. Values and RE curriculum,
- Developing an understanding of the importance of identifying and combating discrimination
- Working with parents to take an active part in identifying barriers and informing school leaders of actions that can be taken to eradicate these
- We have the highest expectations for all our children and staff, and the wider community to ensure everyone strives to be the best they can be, every day.