Equality Objectives
As a Church School, we place a strong emphasis on creating and sustaining an ethos based on Christian principles. Understanding ourselves and respect for others is paramount, and we aim to nurture and develop positive spiritual, moral, social and cultural attitudes within our school community. This not only reflects our school vision it is core to who we are a church school. Religious education and collective worship are central to the life of our school, whilst reflecting the rich variety of religious traditions and diversity of our society.
We have four objectives:
- raise the equality of girls' experience in sport to aspire to non-stereotypical professions
- to fully review the full range of text used across the school so that it better reflects our community in terms of diversity of authors and content
- to promote spiritual development through our curriculum, with particular reference to issues of equality and diversity
- To develop our parents’ technology skill set to support their child's education
These objectives have been set in July 2021 and will continue to be a filter for school development until at least July 2025. The strategy for working towards these objectives will be formally reviewed by the Governing Body every January.
Rationale for each objective
| Objective Focus 1 |
| Over the next four years, girls’ experiences in sports will make them more aware of a range of opportunities so they may aspire to non-stereotypical professions. |
| Why we have chosen this objective |
| Our attainment data demonstrates that girls often attain above national and, at present, outperform boys. Therefore, we wish to inspire our girls and broaden their experiences to empower them to know they can access further education and ultimately senior positions in society. |
| To achieve this objective we plan to |
| Develop our sport curriculum so it may inspire pupils – especially girls – to consider a future career in sport. Organise more after-school and out-of-school sporting opportunities for girls – particularly sports they would not otherwise access themselves. We also want to plan for school visits to various places of education (e.g. university) and work as well as organise for female visitors to give presentations at school about their careers and/or role in society. |
| Progress we are making towards achieving this objective |
| A weekly after-school girls’ football club is firmly in place, including a class teacher who coaches them weekly to ensure they are confident and skilled to achieve well in matches and tournaments. |
| Objective Focus 2 |
| Over the next four years, to fully review the full range of text used across the school so that it better reflects our community in terms of diversity of authors and content. |
| Why we have chosen this objective |
| In June 2020 the school fully reviewed its curriculum and at the same time audited the range of core texts used. This was stimulated by social action following the death of George Floyd. The focus of the objective is to have a range of books that better reflects our diverse community. |
| To achieve this objective we plan to |
| Our first aim is to audit the range of titles that we currently use as core texts. These are high profile, focus texts that have the greatest influence on learning. This will be followed by a sustained review of class texts and to intentionally update them with authors and themes that better reflect our learners heritages and cultures. |
| Progress we are making towards achieving this objective |
| A full audit has been completed with changes made. |
| Objective Focus 3 |
| Over the next four years we will continue to promote spiritual development through our curriculum, with particular reference to issues of equality and diversity. |
| Why we have chosen this objective |
| As a church school we value and understand the importance that being spiritual can have for all, particularly in a post-pandemic period when our community may well be asking deep questions. Being spiritual helps develop an understanding of yourself, the world around you and beyond. This reflects our school vision whilst being inclusive. |
| To achieve this objective we plan to |
| Our first aim is to define what it means to be spiritual supported by a policy. How we are spiritual in school will be the long term task; we will create more opportunities to think and reflect; we will support other schools in how they can establish stillness, refine collective worship and encourage personal and intra-personal spirituality. |
| Progress we are making towards achieving this objective |
| The school has defined what it believes it means to be spiritual and is currently writing its policy. It is also drafting it’s three year plan which will have this policy as a thread throughout. |
| Objective Focus 4 |
| To develop our parents’ technology skill set to support their child's education. |
| Why we have chosen this objective |
| Ensuring all our children have the same opportunities, extends to home learning and family support. We know that there is some disparity between our families, exacerbated during the recent lockdown. Giving our families technical support, equipment and training will help reduce this gap and help enable all our children to be digitally literate. |
| To achieve this objective we plan to |
|
Provide families with equipment to support learning at home To run trainings session on using Google workspace and other tools /apps etc To set up homework club in school |
| Progress we are making towards achieving this objective |
|
Families who need additional support identified Chrome books/laptops have been offered to these families
|
Duty of the School
Our duty
The Equality Act (2010) was introduced to combine the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, Race Relations Act 1976 and Disability Discrimination Act 1995. Previously public bodies were bound by these three sets of duties to promote disability, race and gender equality. In April 2011 these were replaced by a single public sector equality duty (known as the PSED or the equality duty). This new duty extends to all the aspects of a person's identity that are protected under the Equality Act 2010. These are known as protected characteristics and are:
- age
- disability
- gender reassignment
- marriage and civil partnership
- pregnancy and maternity
- race
- religion or belief
- sex
- sexual orientation.
General duty
Public bodies including schools and settings have a general duty to have due regard when making decisions and developing policies, to:
- Eliminate discrimination, harassment, 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.
- Foster good relations across all protected characteristics – between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it.
Specific duty
To help schools and maintained EYFS settings in England meet the general equality duty, there are two specific duties that they are required to carry out. These are:
- To publish information to demonstrate how they are complying with the equality duty.
- To prepare and publish one or more specific and measurable equality objectives.
