Equality and Diversity Policy

1. Our Vision and Aims for Equality and Diversity

At the John Hampden and Tetsworth Schools’ Federation our core values are caring, aspiration and resilience. We will treat everyone fairly; celebrating and meeting different needs so that all members of our school community are free to live, learn and achieve their potential.

We aim to:

• Maintain and promote a working partnership between the school, parents and community which fosters respect, honesty, truth, co-operation and tolerance.
• Help the children understand the world in which they live, have mutual respect for the values of others and work together as a team.
• To ensure that everyone, whatever their needs and capabilities, is included and catered for.
• To value each individual and recognise and respond to the needs of all children.

2. Defining Equality and Diversity

2.1 Equality

Equality is about fairness and equality of opportunity and advancing equality of opportunity involves treating people differently. People should not be treated the same.  Some people may need extra help or adjustments to be part of the school community; this includes teachers, administration, cleaning or catering staff employed at the school as well as pupils/students, parents and school governors.

Relating to the Equality Act (2010) there are nine ‘protected characteristics’ these are:

• age
• disability
• gender reassignment
• marriage / civil partnership
• pregnancy / maternity
• race
• religion and belief
• sex
• sexual orientation

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/equality-act/protected-characteristics

Under the general duty school must exercise ‘due regard’ in respect of the protected characteristics to:-

1. Eliminate unlawful discrimination and harassment
2. Advance equality of opportunity
3. Foster good relations between different groups

2.2 Diversity

Diversity is about valuing people as individuals and learning from our differences. Our differences can be visible and non-visible.  Promoting diversity we can meet difference needs creatively to ensure opportunities are available to all and potential is fulfilled.  Promoting a diversity friendly school culture we are able to meet our school’s aims and objectives more efficiently.

Culture is about the way we behave towards one another – school governors, all employees in the school, parents, pupils and the whole school community. It is about how we treat one another and respect our differences.  Promoting diversity and a diversity friendly culture helps to create a more productive school community.

3. Purpose and Scope of the Policy

This policy sets out the Federation’s commitment to promoting equality and diversity.

We believe that it is our responsibility to promote equality and diversity wider than the nine characteristics (areas) covered by legislation.  We work to remove barriers and we will not unfairly discriminate on any grounds.

We do this by:

• Making appropriate changes to teaching resources.
• Accessing Local Authority Services e.g. Ethnic Minority and Travellers Advisory Service, EAL support etc
• Supporting children’s emotional needs through play therapy and drawing and talking therapy.
• Providing a curriculum, which promotes positive understanding of different characteristics, recognises the contribution that individuals and groups with protected characteristics make to society, and challenges stereotyping and discrimination.
• Monitoring and reviewing of this policy will take place annually and will be made accessible through the school website or will be made available in an alternative format as requested.

The policy applies to:

• School Governors
• Staff
• Parents
• Pupils (as appropriate)
• Visitors
• Multi-agency Professionals
• Contractors

4. Roles and Responsibilities

All members of the school community, governors, staff, pupils, parents and visitors all have a part to play in implementing this policy, promoting diversity and equality, challenging inappropriate behaviour or practice to remove barriers and avoiding discrimination.

To promote the understanding of this responsibility will:

• Ensure all Stakeholders are made fully aware of our Equality and Diversity Policy and how it affects their work.
• Ensure pupils and visitors to our school are clear about the expectations to our commitment to promoting equality and diversity.
• Provide training/development and updates as appropriate.
• Review our equality objectives and actions to ensure all relevant activity remains relevant and meets the identified needs and priorities of our school.

In addition School Governors have responsibility for overseeing, agreeing, monitoring and reviewing of the Federation’s equality objectives, and related activity.

4.1 Breaches of Policy

The Federation views any form of discrimination as a serious act of misconduct. Any allegation of a breach in the policy will be investigated by the Heads of Teaching and Learning or where appropriate, the governing body.  This may lead to disciplinary or other appropriate action being taken.

5. Monitoring and review

The John Hampden and Tetsworth Schools’ Federation has specific duties under the Equality Act (2010) to publish information about the diversity of our school community and the work we are doing to promote equality.

We will review this information annually.

6. Bullying and Diversity incidents

6.1 Pupils

The Federation believes all pupils should be safe and feel valued for themselves, whatever characteristics they may have. Bullying and harassment of pupils, staff, parents, visitors by pupils on the basis of their identity (including a perceived characteristic, and by association with a protected characteristic) is unacceptable.  Incidents will be logged, investigated and appropriate actions taken to prevent future incidents and to support the victim as outlined in the School’s anti-bullying Policy.

6.2 Staff and Governors

The Federation views any form of discrimination undertaken by adults as serious acts of misconduct. Any such breaches could result in disciplinary action being taken and in the case of harassment, might call for police involvement.

7. Diversity Complaints

The Federation takes seriously all complaints; where a complaint is related to equality/diversity issues, the school procedure for dealing with complaints will apply. This procedure will be made accessible through the school website or will be made available in an alternative format as requested.  Complaints should be made to the Headteacher or the Chair of Governors.

HeadteacherPAUL HANKEY                Dateapproved Full GB 27/03/17

Chair of GovernorsADRIAN CANNON  Date  approved Full GB 27/03/17

Appendix 1

Equality objectives

Target	Action	Update
Improve and maintain attendance of SEN and Disadvantaged Children (target better than national average)	Attendance data tracked by Admin staff and Head of Teaching and Learning Attendance meetings and Attendance Agreements for persistent absenteeism
Promote full integration of children with disabilities in school – fosters positive relationship between those with a protected characteristic and those without.	Genes For Genes annual assembly Use of Jigsaw PSHE scheme followed across the school Sign to sing 2018 participation	Children across the school without a protected characteristic are learning to sign

Appendix 2

Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED)

PSED has three main elements. In carrying out their functions, public bodies are required to have due regard to the need to:

• Eliminate discrimination 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 characteristics, and between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it