St Norbert's Catholic Primary School -

St. Norbert’s School Equal Opportunities Statement

St. Norbert’s Catholic Primary School is committed to ensuring equality of provision throughout the school community. To achieve this, our equality objectives are as follows:

To promote cultural development and understanding through a rich range of experience, both in and beyond the school
To tackle prejudice and promote understanding in relation to people with disabilities
To narrow the gap between the attainment of boys and girls in writing at the end of Key Stage 1
To narrow the gap between the attainment of boys and girls in reading at the end of Key Stage 2
To ensure that all pupils are given similar opportunities with regards to after-school clubs and activities
To allow equal access to information for all parents
To ensure the school environment is accessible as possible to all pupils, staff and visitors.
To work collaboratively with other schools to share our work as an RRSA Level 2 Re-accredited school, sharing the messages of the “Rights of the Child”

What is Equality and Diversity?

Equality and diversity, or multiculturalism, is the idea of promoting and accepting the differences between people. More specifically, equality is about ensuring individuals are treated fairly and equally, no matter their race, gender, age, disability, religion or sexual orientation. Diversity is about recognising and respecting these differences to create an all-inclusive atmosphere.

Promoting equality and diversity in education is essential for both staff and pupils. The aim is to create a classroom environment where all pupils can thrive together and understand that individual characteristics make people unique and not ‘different’ in a negative way.

How can equality and multiculturalism be promoted at school?

Promoting equality and diversity in the classroom need not be a challenge and is something that all children should be familiar with from an early age. This means:

Setting clear rules in regards to how people should be treated.
Challenging any negative attitudes.
Treating all staff and pupils fairly and equally.
Creating an all-inclusive culture for staff and pupils.
Avoiding stereotypes in examples and resources.
Using resources with multicultural themes.
Actively promoting multiculturalism in lessons.
Planning lessons that reflect the diversity of the classroom.
Ensuring all students have equal access to opportunities and participation.
Making sure that learning materials do not discriminate against anyone and are adapted where necessary, e.g. large print or audio tape format.
Using a variety of teaching methods.
Using a variety of assessment methods.
Ensuring policies and procedures don’t discriminate against anyone

The Equality Act 2010

Protected Charaterisitics

The Equality Act was introduced to offer legal protection to those people with one or more ‘protected characteristics’.

We will not discriminate on any of the grounds of any Protected Characteristics listed below except where such discrimination is permitted by law. An example of a permitted discrimination relevant to our Schools is:

1. Schools with a religious character (commonly known as faith schools) have certain exceptions to the religion or belief provisions which allow them to discriminate because of religion or belief in relation to admissions and in access to any benefit, facility or service.

The Protected Characteristics that apply to schools are:

Age.
Disability.
Gender reassignment.
Marriage and civil partnership.
Pregnancy and maternity.
Race.
Religion or belief.
Sex.
Sexual orientation.

In regards to teaching this may mean:

Paying attention to the needs of pupils from diverse groups within our curriculum design – including an equality analysis/impact assessment processes in our curriculum development which is a useful way of ensuring that we give due consideration to inclusivity and accessibility.
Making explicit to pupils the standards of conduct that you expect in the way that they interact and dealing promptly and appropriately with inappropriate behaviour.
Identifying opportunities within your teaching for pupils to work collaboratively in diverse groups.
Devising creative and respectful ways of using the diverse experiences of students to add value to the learning experience for everyone.