Diversity and Equality

Our aims are to:

• Eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited by or under the Equality Act 2010
• Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and people who do not share it
• Foster good relations between people who share a relevant ‘protected characteristic’ and those who do not share it
• Create an inclusive and supportive learning environment with a diverse and engaging curriculum that enables and inspires all children to reach their full potential. Barriers to children’s success must be consciously searched for, assessed and responded to effectively
• Ensure that all children feel valued and celebrated. To achieve this all children in our schools will be heard, be seen and be included

Principles

Leadership for transformational change: The Mead Trust is committed to supporting our Executive and Senior leaders to create inclusive schools that remove barriers to success and create a sense of belonging and high expectation for all.

Representation Matters: We understand the importance of having a range of diverse and positive role-models for all and we ensure our curriculum reflects this.

Celebrating diversity: Diversity is a fact and a strength, which should be respected and celebrated by all those who learn, teach and visit our schools.

Reflective practice, training and commitment to improve: We acknowledge that we are on a journey of improvement. We are committed to our continued development and awareness to ensure equity for all in our schools. Staff training and development are designed to challenge thinking, address unconscious bias and improve practice.

Robust systems and monitoring: Through using a variety of checks and balances, we ensure our monitoring systems is robust

We foster strong partnerships with parents/carers and local community: We listen to our families and learn about their needs and the challenges they face. We work with them to ensure we offer the best support for the children in our school. Parents/carers are actively welcomed and involved in school community and help enrich the children’s experiences. We actively promote positive attitudes and mutual respect between groups and communities different from each other.

Responding to local, national and international events and movements: Addressing current issues to demonstrate our support for fighting/challenging inequality and injustice.

Quality first teaching and high expectations and ambitions for all: We are committed to maximise the attainment of every pupil and, in particular, pupils at risk of educational underachievement. We work to raise standards for all pupils, but especially for the most vulnerable. We believe that improving the quality of education for the most vulnerable groups of pupils raises standards across the whole school.

Tackling issues – Addressing prejudice and inequality: The school challenges all forms of prejudice and prejudice-based incidents, which stand in the way of fulfilling our commitment to inclusion and equality: – prejudices around disability and special educational needs – prejudices around race, religion or beliefs – prejudices around gender and sexual orientation. We are an anti-racist school and actively search for ways to promote equality and diverse representation across the curriculum.

Our objectives 2020-2024

• To ensure a diverse representation within governance structures/committee arrangements
• To ensure all staff have equal access to career development and pathways and can seek advice and support to enable this
• To develop and improve the shared equalities knowledge base and understanding across all staff within the Trust’s schools
• To continue to build a curriculum which reflects modern Britain and a celebration all of its diversity and improve quality of the teaching of equality and diversity themes,
• To develop the confidence of all staff in dealing with discriminatory incidents
• Build strong relationships with families in our school community; relationships where people will challenge and contribute to our school

These objectives have been developed in consultation with, and apply to, all of our schools.