Equality Information and Objectives

Public Sector Equality Duty (Updated April 2023)

Learning and growing together in God’s Love

(The following information should be read in conjunction with the CMAT Equality & Diversity Policy)

Public Sector Equality Duty

We welcome our duties under the Equality Act 2010 to publish information that demonstrates that we have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations in relation to age (as appropriate), disability, ethnicity, gender (including issues of transgender, and of maternity and pregnancy), religion and belief and sexual identity.

We 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.

 St Francis of Assisi Catholic School is an inclusive school. We value every member of the community within a caring and supportive environment and is deeply committed to the principles of equality.

We promote positive and respectful relationships and encourage everyone to actively contribute to ensuring equality of opportunity in all aspects of school life, by the daily living out of Gospel values.

Through our policies and practices we strive to eliminate all forms of discrimination that may prevent pupils or staff form achieving their full potential.

We believe that the Equality Act provides a framework to support our strong commitment to valuing diversity, tackling discrimination, promoting equality and fostering good relationships between people. It also ensures that we continue to tackle issues of disadvantage and underachievement of different groups.

Our approach to equality is guided by the following key principles:

1. All learners and adults in our school community are of equal value

2. We recognise and respect difference

3. We foster positive attitudes and relationships and a shared sense of cohesion and belonging

4. We observe good equalities practice in staff recruitment, retention and development

5. We aim to reduce and remove inequalities and barriers that already exist.

6. We consult and involve widely

7. Society as a whole should benefit

8. We base our policies and practices on sound information

9. Our objectives are measurable

The information provided here aims to demonstrate that we give careful consideration to equality issues in everything that we do at St Francis. ‘Due regard’ ensures that we work towards eliminating discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other conduct that is prohibited by the Equality Act.

We are committed to working for equality for all our staff, parents/carers and children to meet our duties under the Equality Act 2010.

We eliminate discrimination by:

• Adoption of the CMAT Equality & Diversity Policy and Action PReadlan
• Accessibility Plan
• Strict adherence to our Behaviour and Anti-Bullying Policies that ensure that all children feel safe at school and any prejudicial bullying is swiftly addressed
• Reporting, responding to and monitoring all racist incidents
• Regularly monitoring the curriculum to ensure that the curriculum meets the needs of our pupils, is broad and balanced and that it promotes respect for diversity and challenges negative stereotyping
• Reviewing PSHE (including SRE, physical activity and healthy eating) and impact of improvements made
• Teaching is of the highest quality to ensure children reach their potential and all pupils are given equal entitlement to success
• Tracking pupil progress to ensure that all children make rapid progress, and intervening when necessary
• Ensuring that all pupils have the opportunity to access extra-curricular provision
• Listening to and monitoring views and experiences of pupils and adults to evaluate the effectiveness of our policies and procedures.

We advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it by:

We advance equality of opportunity by:

• Using the information we gather to identify underachieving groups or individuals and plan targeted intervention
• Ensuring participation of parents/carers and pupils in school development
• Actively encourage all pupils to participate in all aspects of school life eg clubs, Minnie Vinnies, Student Council, Play Leaders and eliminate barriers to inclusion
• Listening to parents/carers
• Listening to pupils at all times
• Issues relating to protected characteristics are carefully considered when appointing staff, to ensure decisions are free form discrimination

We foster good relations across all characteristics – between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it by:

We foster good relations by:

Promoting an ethos of mutual trust and respect, where all are treated with dignity and stereotypes are challenged

• Ensuring that St Francis is seen as a community school within our local community
• Ensuring that equality and diversity are embedded in the curriculum and in collective worship.
• The Local Governing Body is representative of the community it serves
• Vulnerable students are supported by there being both male and female Designated Safeguarding Leads

Equality Objectives 2023 – 2024

At St Francis, we are committed to ensuring equality of education and opportunity for all pupils, staff, parents and carers, irrespective of race, gender, disability, belief, religion or socio-economic background.

In order to further support pupils, raise standards and ensure inclusive teaching, we

have set the following objectives:

Objective 1: To monitor and analyse pupil achievement by ethnicity, gender and disability and act on any trends or patterns in the data that require additional support for pupils.

Objective 2: To continue to narrow the gaps in achievement for vulnerable learners, particularly progress in Reading.  Objective 3: To review levels of parental and pupil engagement in learning and school life, across all activities to ensure equity and fairness in access and engagement.