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Brooklands School

Equality Objectives

Last Updated July 2019

Reviewed March 2022

Our Vision and Aims for Equality and Diversity

At Brooklands, our pupils come first.

We have created an environment where our learners and their learning are central. Our curriculum ensures our pupils are engaged, feel safe and are encouraged to take risks and are happy to learn. It is tailored to their needs, is aspirational in its expectations of them and fully prepares them for the next stages in their lives. We recognise and fully exploit talent in all, and capture and celebrate every success. We know that parents are vital partners in ensuring best outcomes for our pupils, and we value their input in all areas of school life. We believe that our pupils are valued and valuable contributors to their community and we encourage them to be the difference in all aspects of their lives.

We aim to

  • Delivering our vision through a curriculum that is personalised, recognises and builds on strengths and provides meaningful learning experiences
  • Promoting pupil confidence, resilience and self-esteem through valuing their contributions, listening to their voices and providing appropriate pathways and stepping stones to their next stages in learning and in life
  • Providing a safe and secure learning environment where professionals work together to support learners and families to secure best outcomes for our young people
  • Ensuring opportunities for all to make valuable contributions to school life and to the wider community, and to ensure all contributions are valued
  • Celebrating achievements in all areas of school life

Equality

Equality is about fairness and equality of opportunity.  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 there are nine ‘protected characteristics’ these are age; disability, gender reassignment [transgender], marriage/civil partnership, pregnancy/maternity, race, religion and belief (and having no belief), sex (gender) and sexual orientation.

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

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

Diversity

Diversity is about valuing people as individuals and learning from our differences. Our differences can be visible and non-visible. Through promoting diversity we can meet different needs creatively to ensure opportunities are available to all and potential is fulfilled. By 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.

Purpose and Scope of this Statement

This policy sets out Brooklands School’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:

  • Using the school Hive Time to allow our pupils to encounter a range of other pupils who may provide a different role model, support the pupil if they are anxious or worried and befriend the pupil and help to ensure they are happy in school
  • Electing a fully inclusive School Council which makes important decisions on behalf of the wider school body
  • 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.
  • Publishing and reviewing our equality objectives (and reviewing them at least every four years)
  • Undertaking other activities and measures as outlined in this statement, our published information and other relevant documents.

The policy applies to:

  • School governors
  • Staff
  • Parents
  • Pupils
  • Contractors
  • Visitors to the school

Roles and Responsibilities

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

To promote understanding of this responsibility Brooklands School will:

Ensure governors, staff, parents, and contractors are made fully aware of our equality and diversity statement and how it affects their work

Ensure pupils and visitors to our school are clear about the expectations relating 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 / relevant committee have responsibility for overseeing agreeing, monitoring and reviewing of our school’s equality objectives, and related activity.

Breaches of this Statement

Brooklands School views any form of discrimination as a serious act of misconduct. Any allegation of a breach will be investigated by the Governor Complaints Committee. This may lead to disciplinary or other appropriate action being taken.

Monitoring and review

Brooklands School has specific duties under the Equality Act to publish information about the diversity of our school community and the work we are doing to promote equality. This information can be found on our school website. We will review this information annually.

Pupils

Brooklands School believes all pupils should be safe and feel valued for themselves, whatever characteristics they may have. Bullying and harassment of pupils, staff, parents, visitors and/or contractors 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 antibullying policy.

Staff and Governors

North Yorkshire County Council and Brooklands School view 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.

Diversity Complaints

Brooklands School takes seriously all complaints; where a complaint is related to equality/diversity issues, the school procedure for dealing with to complaints will apply.