Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
Our school is committed to promoting and developing equality of opportunity.
We have a staff Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) working party, who are working in a number of areas across the school, including:
- School Policies
- Recruitment
- Student and staff experiences
- Curriculum
- Training
- Use of language
- Disability and inclusion
- LGBT
- Female empowerment.
We survey staff and students regularly to gather feedback on their experiences and respond to this. We have provided training to both staff and students in a number of areas, including the inclusive use of language, and student experiences of sexual harassment.
We use an Equality Impact Assessment to review all of our policies, trips and procedures, and our School Development Plan, to ensure that they do not have a negative impact in relation to any protected characteristics. Our governing board includes a governor with responsibility for EDI, and the governors receive annual updates on our work in this area and its impact.
Students take a lead in many areas of EDI. Our student advocacy leads work on areas related to female empowerment and also young people’s experiences of sexual harassment. Our diversity leads organise half-termly cultural celebrations, during which we celebrate the many cultures represented within our school community. We recognise and celebrate a range of religious and cultural dates, and key dates in the EDI calendar, such as Black History Month, and LGBT week. Events in 2021-22 included Chinese Cultural Celebration Week, Indian Cultural Celebration Week, World Cultural Day and Turkish Sovereignty and Children’s Day.
We have worked with the Institute for Educational and Social Equity (IESE) to provide training for all Heads of Department. We are using the IESE’s Inclusive Curriculum Survey to review the curriculum in each department area. The two departments who have completed this review process so far, History and Biology, have both received a gold award from the IESE. This is in recognition of the fact that EDI is being mainstreamed and embedded in the curriculum. We will extend this audit to two further departments each year. Our school development plan and department plans include an EDI focus, and we draw on research to inform our work.
