Safeguarding Children

Equality, Diversity and Cohesion Policy

This policy was formulated by a working party consisting of the Associate Head Teacher, SENCO, Head of Year, Assistant Head of Year, a Governors a teacher and members of the Parent Teacher Association, in consultation with pupil representatives from the Year Councils.

Our Vision

To create a fair and just school community, that promotes social inclusion, community cohesion and equality, that respects diversity and which challenges and acts upon discrimination and inequality including bullying.

Earlsheaton Technology College provides education for all, acknowledging that the society within which we live is enriched by diversity. Earlsheaton Technology College strives to ensure that the culture and ethos of the school reflects the diversity of ALL members of the school community, where everyone is equally valued and treats one another with respect and fairness. Pupils are provided with the opportunity to experience, understand and celebrate diversity.

Earlsheaton Technology College will not tolerate harassment of any kind. We are committed to combating ALL forms of discrimination.

Earlsheaton Technology College recognises that monitoring and evaluation of equality is essential to ensure pupils are not being disadvantaged, and that monitoring leads to action planning.

Earlsheaton Technology College intends that its workforce reflects Kirklees' diversity at all levels of the organisation. We aim to be an inclusive employer that positively values the contribution of all employees. Through both our employment policies and strategies, we aim to achieve equality for all sections of the workforce and the community we serve.

Earlsheaton Technology College will work towards eliminating all discrimination, on the grounds of race, gender, gender reassignment, disability, sexuality (including sexual orientation), age, religion and belief. We believe that all pupils, employees and other service users should be treated with dignity and respect at all times and we will not tolerate bullying, harassment or victimisation of any groups or individuals.

Earlsheaton Technology College will be an equality champion and community leader in:

Promoting equality, for example by assessing the impact of our policies on different groups
Challenging and eradicating discrimination, for example , by acting quickly to deal with all bullying, including that which is aimed at groups as well as individuals, such as racist bullying
Promoting community cohesion, for example, through involvement with the School Twinning Project
Giving a high profile to rights and responsibilities by promoting human rights, justice and fairness throughout the curriculum and wider school community
Developing an Equality, Diversity and Cohesion Strategy that includes all equality strands and links targets and actions with our School Improvement Plan
Developing, implementing, monitoring and reporting equality work throughout the school community as part of our business planning, school improvement, and school self evaluation processes
Developing and supporting a workforce that seeks to reflect at all levels the resident community of Kirklees
Working in partnership and consulting with pupils, parents, staff, stakeholders and the wider community to develop good practice and lead the equality agenda within our community
Reviewing and auditing all our equality, diversity and cohesion activities

Our Principles

To promote equality, diversity and cohesion within the local community. We believe that our organisation has to reflect all the communities and people it serves.

Challenge discrimination on the grounds of gender, race, age, disability, sexuality (including sexual orientation), religion or belief.

Our vision for equality and diversity goes beyond establishing processes to achieve change. We will monitor progress made towards meeting objectives to:

Take adequate steps to prevent discrimination
Take decisive action when discrimination occurs
Take steps to promote equality, diversity and cohesion

All our staff will consistently challenge all put-downs, harassment, name-calling, bullying, threatening or hurtful behaviour (physical and psychological) that violates a group or individual and leads to marginalisation, exclusion, and feelings of powerlessness and worthlessness because of:

colour, culture, ethnicity, faith, religion, belief, national origin, national status, disability or impairment, perception of sexuality including sexual orientation, gender, marital status, socio-economic background, age, responsibility for dependants and trade union membership.

We accept the findings of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report, with particular respect to the McPherson definition of 'institutional racism', which is:

'The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people'

We recognise that the McPherson definition of 'institutional discrimination' in relation to race can be equally applied to other equality strands.

We acknowledge The Stephen Lawrence Enquiry definition of a racist incident is "any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person".

We also recognise that all pupils may experience harassment and bullying and in tackling these issues in school, we use the same definition that such an incident is perceived to be harassment or bullying by the victim or another person, until proven otherwise.

We will strive to be a 'listening school'. We listen to all our school community members including pupils, parents, staff, visitors, wider community members, stakeholders and partners. We take seriously all experiences of bullying and hurtful behaviour resulting from bullying such as racism.

We invite all our pupils in particular to talk to us about bullying, where it happens, who is doing it, and what it involves.

We are committed to being a learning organisation which recognises the contribution of all pupils, staff, parents and other partners and which is supportive, fair, just and free from discrimination. We will continue to develop preventative measures to deal with discrimination including promoting human rights and equality through the Citizenship Curriculum and in particular focusing on the 'rights of the child’, the 'right to education' and the right to be safe.

Our SEN policy demonstrates our commitments to Pupil Participation, Parent Partnership, Resource Allocation and Curriculum Access. Some of the outcomes of how these aspects are reflected in our school practice and the steps we need to take to develop them link directly to the disability dimensions of our Equality, Diversity and Cohesion Strategy.

Involvement and engagement with pupils, staff, governors, parents and with the wider community will form part of our equality, diversity and cohesion strategy with clear objectives and timescales. Partnerships with parents, governors and the wider community are essential to promote equality, diversity and community cohesion. The schools engagement with partners is central to our overall strategy and forms a key part of our Equality, Diversity and Cohesion Strategy and School Improvement Plan.

Encourage diversity and eliminate unfair treatment and discrimination through a full range of human resource policies and procedures in particular in the areas of recruitment, training and development and promotion.

Monitor staff in post, all applicants, short listed candidates and candidates appointed.

Recognise that staff have rights as employees to work in a supportive, safe and harassment free environment and that staff have individual and collective responsibility to value and respect each other's contributions.

Promote an environment where standards of conduct are of the highest level and to ensure that no one is harassed, bullied or victimised.

Develop annual equality milestones and other objectives within the School Improvement Plan to ensure that equality and diversity are central to our everyday work.

Ensure that in planning, delivering and monitoring strategies and policies, equality and diversity issues are considered at the outset of that work and that we will consult with pupils, parents, staff, partners where appropriate and the wider community.