Legal Duties
The Equality Act 2010 provides a single, consolidated source of discrimination law. This act replaces all other existing equality legislation such as the Race Relations Act and the Disability Act. As a school, we welcome our duties under the Equality Act 2010 and we are proud of our diversity, plus inclusive environment. Fleetdown Primary Academy strongly opposes all forms of prejudice that could act as a barrier to achieving our legal duties and to being a cohesive, plus inclusive community.
The general duties are to:
- Eliminate discrimination
- Advance equality of opportunity
- Foster good relations.
All staff and governors at Fleetdown Primary Academy are expected to:
- Follow and uphold our Core Values and Community Code.
- Treat all learners and staff with equal value.
- Promote equality and inclusion in their classrooms, amongst colleagues and with visitors to Fleetdown Primary Academy.
- Deal with any prejudice related incidents that may occur.
- Plan and deliver a full inclusive curriculum that enables everyone to achieve their full potential.
- Recognise, respect and celebrate differences.
- Foster positive attitudes and relationships.
We understand the principle of the Act, plus 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
- Special Educational Needs
- Race & xenophobia (dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries)
- Sexism and homophobia
- Gender reassignment
- Maternity and pregnancy
- Religion and belief
- Travellers, migrants, refugees and asylum seekers
- Sexual orientation
- Marriage and civil partnership (for employees)
In order to meet our general duties, listed above, the law requires us to carry out 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 (we will not publish any information that can specifically identify any child/staff member)
- Prepare and publish equality objectives
To do this we will collect data related to the protected characteristics above and analyse this data to determine how well we are doing to meet 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.
- Recruitment
Our objectives will detail how we will ensure equality is applied to the services listed above; however, where we find evidence that other functions significantly impact any particular group, we will include work in this area.
Addressing Prejudice-Related Incidents
This Academy is opposed to all forms of prejudice, and we recognise that children and young people who experience any form of prejudice-related discrimination may fare less well in the education system. We educate both our pupils and staff on the impact of prejudice to prevent 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.
Responsibility
We believe that promoting Equality is the whole school’s responsibility.