Equality & Inclusion
EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY STATEMENT
PROMOTING EQUALITY IS EVERYONE’S RESPONSIBILITY
St Martins is required to hold and publish information about how we comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty. This is addressed within our Equality and Diversity Statement below.
LEGAL DUTIES
At St Martins we welcome our duties under the Equality Act 2010. The general duties are to:
- eliminate discrimination
- advance equality of opportunity
- foster good relations
We understand the principle of the Act and the work needed to ensure that those with protected characteristics are not discriminated against and are given equality of opportunity. A protected characteristic under the act covers the groups listed below:
- age (for employees not for service provision)
- disability
- ethnicity
- gender
- gender reassignment
- maternity and pregnancy
- religion and belief, and
- sexual identity
- Marriage and Civil Partnership (for employees)
In order to meet our general duties, listed above, the law requires us to do some specific duties to demonstrate how we meet the general duties. These are to:
- Publish equality information – to demonstrate compliance with the general duty across its functions – by 6 April 2012
We will not publish any information that can specifically identify any individual child or adult
- Prepare and publish equality objectives – by 6 April 2012
To do this we will collect data related to the protected characteristics above and analyse this data to determine our focus for our equality objectives. The data will be assessed across our core provisions as a school. This will include the following functions:
- Admissions
- Attendance
- Attainment
- Exclusions
- Prejudice related incidents
Our objectives will detail how we will ensure equality is applied to the services listed above however where we find evidence that other functions have a significant impact on any particular group we will include work in this area.
We also welcome our duty under the Education and Inspections Act 2006 to promote community cohesion.
We recognise that these duties reflect international human rights standards as expressed in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, and the Human Rights Act 1998.
CORE STATEMENTS
In fulfilling our legal obligations we will be guided by seven core statements:
Statement 1: All learners are of equal value.
Statement 2: We recognise, welcome and respect diversity.
Statement 3: We foster positive attitudes and relationships, and a shared sense of belonging.
Statement 4: We observe good equalities practice, including staff recruitment, retention and development.
Statement 5: We aim to reduce and remove existing inequalities and barriers.
Statement 6: We consult and involve widely
Statement 7: We strive to ensure that society will benefit.
OUR ETHOS
Our ethos is one of love and care within a Christian community – every child is cared for as a child of God. We place a high priority on the emotional health and wellbeing of every child and know that in order to learn effectively children need to feel safe and secure.
We use the Church Of England’s Vision for Education, which has Jesus’ promise at its heart. Our core Christian values are Love, Hope, Kindness, Grace, Faith and Mercy. These are embedded within our school vision statement of, ‘Being the best we can be for ourselves, each other and God’s world.’
Addressing Inequality Through Unconscious Bias and/or Overt Discrimination.
We are opposed to all forms of inequality and we recognise that children and young people may be negatively impacted by any experience of discrimination.
Through assemblies, PHSE and CPD we provide both our pupils and staff with an awareness of the impact of discrimination in order to prevent any incidents.
If incidents still occur we address them immediately and report them to the Local Authority using their guidance material. The Local Authority may provide some support.