Equalities, Diversity & Inclusion
The Equality Act 2010 was introduced to ensure protection from discrimination, harassment and victimisation on the grounds of specific characteristics (referred to as protected characteristics).
The protected characteristics are:
Age (although not part of the provisions relating to students) Disability
Sex (including transgender)
Gender reassignment
Race
Religion or belief
Sexual orientation
Pregnancy and maternity
Marriage and Civil Partnership (although not part of the provisions relating to students.)
Our Equality policy is intended to bring together all previous policies around equality issues, including race, gender and disability. It includes all of the protected characteristics covered under the Equality Act 2010 as well as other aspects which have the potential to discriminate against or to devalue any individuals within our community. We are committed to the development of cohesive communities both within our school’s physical boundaries and within our local, national and global environments.
Aims
The Equality Act 2010 has three aims under the general duty for schools:
- Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other prohibited by the act, by removing or minimising disadvantages suffered by people due to their protected characteristics.
- Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not, by taking steps to meet the needs of people from protected groups where these are different from the needs of other people.
- Foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not, by encouraging people from protected groups to participate in public life or in other activities where their participation is disproportionately low.
Our school has considered how well we currently achieve these aims with regard to the protected characteristics under the act. In compiling this equality information, we have:
- Identified evidence already in the school of equality within policies and practice and identified gaps.
- Examined how our school engages with the protected groups, identifying where practice could be improved.
- Analysed our effectiveness in terms of equality.
The public sector equality duty requires that equality considerations are integrated into all the functions and policies of the school, and all staff and governors need to understand the requirements and implications, and share responsibility for the implementation.
In order to meet our general duties, schools are required to carry out some specific duties to demonstrate how we meet the general duties. These are to:
- Publish equality information to demonstrate compliance with the general duty across the functions. We will not publish any information that can specifically identify any child.
- Prepare and publish equality objectives 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.
