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 aspiration and opportunity. 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.

The principles of Equality and Diversity are at the heart of the Federation’s vision for all stakeholders. All members of the community within the Federation are expected to uphold the values and behave in a non-discriminatory way.

2. Defining Equality and Diversity

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 teaching staff, administration staff, 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 (transgender)
Marriage / civil partnership
Pregnancy / maternity
Race
Religion and belief (and having no belief)
Sex (gender)
Sexual orientation.

2.2 Diversity

Diversity is about valuing people as individuals and learning from our differences. Our differences can be visible and non-visible. By promoting diversity we can meet difference 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 school employees, 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. Meeting our duties

Under the Equality Act 2010, the school has a Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) that extends to all protected characteristics to show 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 – between people who share protected characteristics and people who do not share it.

4. Purpose and Scope of the Policy

This policy sets out the Federation’s commitment to celebrating and promoting equality and diversity. We will provide a supportive, inclusive and empowering learning community for all pupils and adults that fosters positive relationships and values diversity as a rich learning resource.

We believe that it is our responsibility to promote equality and diversity beyond 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 Oxfordshire School Inclusion Team (OXSIT), EAL support etc
Providing specific and targeted training to enable staff to meet the needs of individuals
Sharing good practice in respect of teaching and learning to ensure equality of access for all
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.
Placing PSHE at the heart of our curriculum so that our pupils talk about difference and diversity regularly and openly.
Monitoring and reviewing of this policy will take place annually and will be made accessible through the school website and made available in an alternative format as requested.

The policy applies to:

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

5. Roles and Responsibilities

All members of the school community: governors, staff, pupils, parents and visitors 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.
Ensure pupils have responsibility to themselves and others to treat each other with respect.
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.
Ensure staff promote an inclusive and collaborative ethos in our Schools.

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

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 Executive Headteacher, Head of School, Deputy Headteacher or, where appropriate, the governing body. This may lead to disciplinary or other appropriate action being taken.

6. 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 the effectiveness of the Equality policy by an assessment of progress against the targets together with stakeholder’s views. This will be reported annually.

7. Bullying and Diversity incidents

7.1 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 or 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.

7.2 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.

8. Diversity Complaints

The Federation takes seriously all complaints and 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 and will be made available in an alternative format as requested. Complaints should be made to the Headteacher or the Chair of Governors.

Appendix 1

Equality objectives

Target	Action	Update Spring Term
To report all protected characteristic incidents	Termly reporting to FGB	Termly report given to FGB
Continue to monitor behaviour and support individuals who need extra intervention	Meetings when appropriate to monitor any behaviour concerns and to plan interventions SENCO to continue to research zones of regulation SLT/SENCO to liaise with class teachers to support any specific children with planned targeted support.	Staff continue to have meetings when appropriate with parents/SLT Training has been provided to all staff regarding zones. Trial roll out to children in term 5/6 SLT/SENCO continue to liaise with class teachers to support the specific needs of the children. Targeted support in place through interventions
Provide a range of educational opportunities for parents to develop their own skills to support their children	Virtual and face to face parent workshops focussed on the core subjects in the curriculum Workshops to give parents strategies on how to help at home. Targeted small group support of those families who are considered vulnerable e.g. regular meetings, signposting to support in the community etc	Impacted by covid and staff absences SENCO providing signposting for support. Updated homework policy sent to parents. Parents evenings provided opportunity to give ideas to support children. Parent workshops carried out e.g. KS1 reading
To plan direct work for children through assemblies and curriculum on equality	Weekly/half termly assemblies with a focus on diversity Planning events throughout the year	Assemblies continue to happen every week based on the Jigsaw topic Equality and Diversity group to plan an equality and diversity week in term 6. Continued events planned for year groups throughout the year (ongoing)
To promote understanding and respect for differences	Study famous people from ethnic minorities with a variety of abilities and celebrate their diversity Identify opportunities in the curriculum to look at other cultures/countries Use collective worship/assemblies as an opportunity to celebrate festivals of a range of cultures and countries Use events like Eid, Diwali to explore and celebrate cultures	Ongoing through the curriculum across the school e.g. year 2 learned about Bessie Coleman Ongoing across the curriculum throughout the year Ongoing across the curriculum throughout the year Ongoing across the RE curriculum in different year groups
Extend pupils’ understanding of the range of peoples, cultures and religions	Curriculum overview and RE scheme of work to be monitored to ensure coverage Plan and celebrate Black History Month, International celebration and cultural festivals Extend visitors to assemblies to include a range of faiths	Ongoing RE coordinator has carried out a planning and book look Black History Month was planned for across all year groups Impacted due to covid restrictions
To narrow the pupil premium gap in Reading, Writing and Mathematics in all year groups To narrow the pupil premium gap in phonics in year 1 and 2	Increase the number of Pupil Premium pupils working at the expected standard for their age Focus groups in Pupil Progress meetings. Monitor the achievement of Pupil Premium pupils Plan and deliver specific interventions in place to support and address the needs of PP in each year group, from assessments Plan and deliver specific interventions in place to support and address the needs of PP in Phonics in year 1 and 2	Ongoing PP children were identified and support put in place during PM of staff Through PM meetings, PP children were identified and support and interventions planned it – this is ongoing and has been impacted by staff shortages and covid Daily phonics lessons carried out for year 1 and those year 2s that need further support. Extra interventions for PP children in phonics
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 and appeal Signing ambassadors (2021/22)	Genes for Genes day (17.09.21) Signing ambassadors voted in and meet termly Children across the school without a protected characteristic are learning how 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