Equality and Equity

The Equality Act became law in 2010. It covers everyone in Britain and protects people from discrimination, harassment and victimisation. Everyone in Britain is protected. This is because the Equality Act protects people against discrimination because of the protected characteristics that we all have. Under the Equality Act, there are nine Protected Characteristics:

1. Age
2. Disability
3. Gender reassignment
4. Race
5. Religion or belief
6. Marriage or civil partnership
7. Sex
8. Sexual orientation
9. Pregnancy and maternity

Wilden Church of England Primary School prides itself on being an inclusive school that cares for every individual child. In doing so, we promote and deliver a range of strategies to ensure that we comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty.

The 9 Protected Characteristics are actively promoted in our school through:

• Our school vision and ethos statements, School Development Plan, and Self-Evaluation Form
• Our school behaviour (Respect) policy
• Conscious role modelling by all adults in the school community
• Active engagement and communication with parents and carers, embracing our community
• Wilden Church of England Primary upholds and teaches children about Fundamental British Values alongside our school values as part of evolving curriculum and weekly assemblies.
• Our school fosters our own learning characteristics of being brave, innovative, collaborative and taking ownership through carefully planned activities that encourage children to develop as individuals alongside academic knowledge and skills.
• Promoting tolerance, mutual respect and understanding through religious festival days e.g to celebrate Diwali children and parents are actively encouraged to speak to the school community, sharing rituals and traditional stories.
• Learning about significant people who represent the protected characteristics and challenging stereotyping and discrimination is embedded within our history curriculum e.g Rosa Parks, Neil Armstrong and Amelia Earhart
• Developing a love of reading through a range of authors and genres
• Promoting articulation by building appropriate language and a coherent vocabulary
• Personal, Social, Health and Economic education (PSHE) sessions and RSE lessons
• Religious Education and World Views (RAW) lessons
• Art projects and visits

Equality Objectives for Wilden Church of England Primary School.

We aim to provide all our pupils with the opportunity to succeed, and to reach the highest level of personal achievement. To do this, teaching and learning will ensure the following:

• Ensure equality of access for all pupils and prepare them for life in a diverse society.
• Use materials that reflect a range of cultural backgrounds, without stereotyping.
• Promote attitudes and values that will challenge discriminatory behaviour.
• Provide opportunities for pupils to appreciate their own culture and celebrate the diversity of other cultures.
• Use a range of sensitive teaching strategies when teaching about different cultural traditions.
• Develop pupils’ awareness so that they can detect bias and challenge discrimination.
• Ensure that the PSHE curriculum covers issues of equalities, diversity, human rights and inclusion.
• Seek to involve all parents in supporting their child’s education.
• Provide educational visits and extra-curricular activities that reflect all pupil groupings.
• Take account of the performance of all pupils when planning for future learning and setting challenging targets.
• Make best use of all available resources to support the learning of all groups of pupils.

All parents/carers are encouraged to participate at all levels in the full life of the School.