Equality Statement & Objectives

Introduction

At Co-op Academy Penny Oaks, we are committed to promoting equality and preventing discrimination in both employment and education provision. We will create an inclusive environment, where everyone can contribute their best work and develop to their full potential. We will celebrate the fact that everyone is different yet valued, and make sure that everyone is treated with dignity and respect.

We will foster an appreciation of our diversity and celebrate this in the environment, curriculum and experiences. We offer a broad and balanced curriculum, and consider our pupils' varied experiences, abilities and needs. The achievements, attitudes and well-being of all members of our school community matters.

You can read more about this below, including the actions we have already taken to advance equality, diversity & inclusion in our academy and our community, and to comply with our equality duty. We’ve also set out our equality objectives, which are the things we’re going to be focusing on this year.

Equality Statement

At Co-op Academy Penny Oaks, we strive to foster an inclusive environment where everyone is valued and their contributions celebrated regardless of their background. At Co-op Academy Penny Oaks diversity is celebrated and this ethos is embraced throughout the whole community from pupils, staff and the wider community.

We strive to create and maintain a school that is welcoming, and reflective of the diverse multicultural society around us; a school where all pupils have a voice, where our school values are entrenched in all that we do (see our Positive behaviour policy).

In order to achieve this, we will:

• Always challenge in an open and frank manner, behaviour and language which threaten the promotion of equal opportunities and take time to discuss with children the negative and damaging effect it has.
• Take the opportunity to use display space and assembly time to promote issues of equality, diversity and self-esteem.
• Implement praise, reward, criticism and punishment with due consideration for equality.  Equal opportunity demands a right to an equal response and outcome to a situation
• Encourage a climate of openness where children feel safe and confident to raise issues of concern to them, bullying, racism, online-safety, taunting etc., and where the school can place a positive influence on discussion and events.
• Be sensitive to the needs of all individuals; recognising each in his or her own right, and without placing labels on individuals or groups of children.  This includes a commitment to ensure that individual or group needs are met.
• Be aware of the power of language, including body language, as a tool which can promote equality or perpetuate inequality.
• Children, too, need to be made aware of their language use and its implications.  In addition, they also need to be made aware of their part in promoting positive relationships and the ethos of the school.
• Encourage high aspirations and a skill set for a global citizenship by offering a range of opportunities and experiences to broaden and raise personal expectations as much as possible.

At Penny Oaks, our aims are designed to ensure that the school meets the needs of all of its community, taking account of the nine protected characteristics; race, disability, sex, age, religion or belief, sexual orientation, pregnancy, maternity/paternity and gender reassignment. It is important that in this school we meet the diverse needs of pupils to ensure inclusion for all and that all pupils are prepared for full participation in a multi-ethnic society.

Actions Taken - 2021/2022

During the last year we have taken the following actions to advance equality, diversity & inclusion, and to comply with our equality duty:

Pupils / Students

• We have invested in books across the curriculum that have themes and characters reflective of our school community
• We have embedded a selection of significant figures throughout our curriculum that represent all of the protective characteristics - these are featured in either assemblies or a key figures in topics for all year groups.
• We seek to incorporate figures representing the protective characteristics whenever we have added new figures to the curriculum or added new texts.

Colleagues

• Show appreciation of all staff and the work they do by ensuring that we reward all through our reward and recognition scheme in school
• Ensure all staff are listened and responded to by consulting with them on key policies as well as key plans
• Take religion, culture and ethnicity in consideration when planning staff events and staff rewards.

Our Community

• We have celebrated pride month with assemblies and special guests throughout the month to help the children create work linked to the pride theme.
• We have celebrated Black History Month with poetry and special assemblies
• We have worked with our community to create dishes on our menu that reflect the entire community working with parents to create African dishes for our dinner menu and plan to work with a local indian restaurant to devise indian dishes to add to our menu. Our aim is that all of our children feel that there are dishes on our menu that they recognise and therefore feel that they have the option of a hot meal each day.

Equality Objectives - 2024/2025

Objective 1: to embed equality, diversity and inclusion into the curriculum and teaching & learning practices

We will imbed equality, diversity and inclusion into the curriculum and teaching and learning practices by:

• Continuing to ensure that our range of significant figures in our curriculum are local and representative of our community to celebrate our diversity
• Working towards the Anti-racist school award with Leeds BeckettUniversity, we will further develop our practice in school linked to Governance, Leadership & Management, School Environment, The Curriculum, Parents / Carers and Community Partnerships.
• We will through the use of our oracy assemblies to teach children about equality and diversity and tackle prejudices so that our pupils will be informed and educated in differences and have respect and appreciation for differences
• Through our Reading curriculum and the books, we purchase we will ensure that both the content and the authors, on the whole, are representative of our diverse context

We will work with our sponsor, the Co-op, to develop a new curriculum on anti-racism so that the next generation knows what it means to be anti-racist.

Objective 2: to embed equality, diversity and inclusion into the academy

We will monitor and analyse pupil achievement and progress by ethnicity, gender and disability, and act on any trends or patterns in this data which identify the need for additional support for pupils with the aim of narrowing the gap for equality groups.

Monitor attendance for key groups and ensure good attendance for all

We will create and promote opportunities for staff voice, and debate & dialogue, around these key issues.

Ensure that we have key messages about expectations, attendance and the curriculum available for parents in their home language to ensure a good understanding of this and to promote working together to achieve the best outcomes for all pupils.

Review date: 01 September 2025