Diversity and Equality Strategic Plan – Sept 2024

Golftyn CP School Diversity and Equality Strategic Plan

If you would like a copy of this document in an alternative format or your own language please contact the school office.

Contents

Introduction 3

1.1 Purpose

1.2 Developing the Plan

Background 3

2.1 Our School and community

2.2 Responsibility

Our Equality Objectives 4

3.1 Equality Objectives

3.2 How we developed our objectives

Engagement and Information Gathering 5

4.1 Engagement

4.2 Information

Equality Impact Assessment 6

Monitoring and Review 6

Publication 6

Appendix 1 – School Equality Action Plan 7

Introduction

At Golftyn CP School we recognise our duty and responsibility to eliminate discrimination and promote equality for pupils, employees, other members of the school community and service users regardless of their race, gender, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, marriage and civil partnership as defined within the Equality Act 2010.

We have developed our Strategic Equality Plan (SEP) to ensure equality is at the heart of everything that we do as an education provider and as an employer. The ESP sets out our priorities for equality for 2020-2025 and the actions we will take to reduce identified inequalities, improve outcomes in education and employment and foster good community relations.

The Plan will also help us to meet the general duty of the Equality Act (2010):-

Eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited under the Act;

Advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it; this means

removing or minimising disadvantages suffered by persons who share a relevant protected characteristic that are connected to that characteristic, (definition of protected characteristics in Diversity and Equality policy)
taking steps to meet the needs of persons who share a relevant protected characteristic that are different from the needs of persons who do not share it
encouraging persons who share a relevant protected characteristic to participate in public life or in any other activity in which participation by such persons is disproportionately low

Foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.

Background

2.1 Our school and local community

The profile of the school and local community is set out in our Diversity and Equality policy. This also describes our commitment and approach to promoting equality in education and employment. All school Governors, employees and pupils have responsibility for promoting equality and adhering to policy.

We have already taken steps to promote equality, some of the actions we have taken include:

Producing an accessibility plan
Kiva whole school approach to bullying.
Respecting Rights Bronze Award and we are working towards our Silver Award.
JigSaw scheme
Growing up resources – Tyfy y Fyny, Sense
Wellbeing survey
Modern Slavery Training
VAWDASV Training
Prevent – Radicalisation training
Autism training
Nurture Intervention programmes delivered by trained Wellbeing Staff
Wellbeing coach

2.2 The Governing Body and Senior Management team are responsible for ensuring that the Diversity Equality Policy and Strategic Equality Plan are implemented, and our objectives are achieved.

Our Equality Objectives

3.1 The overall objective of the school’s Equality Plan (Appendix 1) is to provide a framework for the school to pursue its equality objectives to eliminate unlawful discrimination and harassment, promote equality of opportunity and promote good relations and positive attitudes between people of diverse backgrounds, in all its activities.

Our objectives relate to all of the relevant protected characteristics and contribute to meeting the General and Specific Duties of the Equality Act (2010).

The action plan sets out our objectives and describes:-

the action we will take to meet the objectives
how we will measure improvement
who has responsibility for action
time scales

The action plan is incorporated into the School Improvement Plan which ensures that it is monitored and evaluated systematically.

3.2 We developed our Equality Objectives through:

Reviewing Flintshire County Council’s and the Local Education Authority’s LEA) equality objectives when available,
Involving key stakeholders,
Reviewing national research and data, such as that provided by the Welsh Local Government Information,
Considering the issues identified within inspection reports,
Analysing pupil data, for example, attainment level of boys compared to attainment level of girls, take up of free school meals.

Engagement and Information Gathering

4.1 Engagement

We regularly involve stakeholders, including children, staff, parents/carers, governors, other users of the school and community representatives in relation to the development of policies and as required by the equalities duties. We use a wide range of mechanisms including:-

Involving the School Golftyn Government
Circulating questionnaires in a variety of formats and languages to ensure the questionnaire is accessible and meets the communication needs of consultees, including disabled people, and people who do not speak English or Welsh,
Holding meetings and focus groups ensuring the timing and venue is accessible and inclusive for stakeholders. As and when needed.

Specifically for this scheme, we:-

Involved our pupils on the school government in the formulation of the action plan
Had represented groups on our working party in drawing up the action plan.

4.2 Information

Data and information is reviewed and analysed to measure our performance and identify areas for improvement. Subsequent actions are included in the School’s Improvement Plan. The information also contributes to equality impact assessments which are undertaken as part of the requirements of the equality duties. All data collected is used solely for the purpose of analysing trends by protected characteristic. (See Diversity and Equality Policy for definitions of these characteristics) It is stored separately from personal information which identifies the individual and we ensure it meets the requirements of the Data Protection Act. To protect the identity of individuals, published information contains data which has been aggregated. The Welsh Government and Local Education Authority collate and publish pupil data provided by schools. Flintshire County Council publishes a profile of the workforce.

http://www.wlga.gov.uk/english/senior-management-team/

The wide range of information gathered to identify equality objectives may include the following:

an analysis of the responses received from pupils, parents/carers, staff, governors and community groups following the distribution of a questionnaire to determine equality issues.
profile of the local community,
identification of children, parents, carers, staff and other users of the school representing the different protected characteristics, if possible and appropriate,
pupil attainment and progress data relating to different groups,
school exclusions and expulsions by protected characteristic,
take up of free school meals,
incidents of identity based bullying and harassment,
reviewing hate incidents for Flintshire as recorded by Flintshire Community Safety Partnership http://wales.gov.uk/topics/localgovernment/partnership/council/?lang=en (Once their data has been updated),
research undertaken by Welsh Local Government Association,
sports and activities choices of all groups,
data on the recruitment, development and retention of employees,
outcomes of actions taken to secure the involvement of parents and others who have been identified as difficult to engage.

Equality Impact Assessment (EIA)

As required by legislation, we intend to undertake equality impact assessments upon new and revised policies and plans, to identify potential and actual inequalities and to promote equality and good community relations. This will ensure that we develop inclusive policies. Where possible we will work as a consortium with other schools to avoid duplication and consultation fatigue and use our resources efficiently. We will follow guidance and templates provided by

the LEA, and use results of monitoring and engagement and consultation with stakeholders representing the protected characteristics, to inform our impact assessments

Monitoring and Review

The Strategic Equality Plan will be monitored each year through the Governing body and as part of our School Improvement Plan. As a result of monitoring or new evidence, we may need to alter any of our equality objectives or include new objectives

Publication

A copy of our Strategic Equality Plan (SEP) will be published in English on our website and will be made available in a range of formats on request. We actively promote the plan and include a summary within the school prospectus.

Appendix 1

School EqualityAction Plan 2020 – 2025

Equality Strand	Action	Monitored by whom?	Who is responsible for implementing?	Timeframes
All	Update, publish and promote the Equality Plan in an accessible format on our website.	Consultation group, meetings and annual review.	Headteacher, Governing Body.	2024-2025
All	Continue to ensure that displays in classrooms and corridors promote diversity.	Increase in pupil participation, confidence and positivity – monitor through H&W / RVE.	SMT Class teachers.	Autumn, Spring, Summer term each year.
All	Identify, respond and report discriminatory incidents out -lined in the plan. Report the figures to the Governing Body/ LEA on a termly basis.	The Headteacher/ Governing Body will use the data to assess the impact of the school’s response to incidents i.e. have whole school/year group approaches led to a decrease in incidents, can repeat perpetrators be identified, are pupils and parents satisfied with the response?	Headteacher, Governing Body.	Termly
Religion and Belief	To develop awareness of radicalisation amongst all staff.	All teaching staff to attend Prevent training, Modern Slavery Training and VAWDASV Training	Headteacher, SMT	Spring 2025 Prevent Training
Disability	To address issues from School Accessibility Plan	Headteacher and governors will identify issues. ALNCo will meet with outside agency advisors. Necessary work will be planned for/requested by Headteacher.	Headteacher, Governors, ALNCo.	September 2024 annual update
All	To develop the Four Purposes across the school so that all pupils will be: ● ethical, informed citizens of Wales and the World ● healthy, confident individuals who are ready to lead fulfilling lives as valued members of society	Our Curriculum offer will ensure that we cover all aspects and that pupils are given regular opportunities throughout their time in Golftyn to develop these skills.	Headteacher, SMT	Ongoing as part of our Curriculum for Wales. Our Offer is on our website
Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation	To attend relevant training and review practices and teaching as appropriate.	A member of staff will attend relevant training. Protocol for dealing with gender issues will be established. Statements relating to relevant protected characteristics will be included in Bullying, Behaviour and PSE policies. PSE Scheme of work will be reviewed and changed as necessary	Headteacher, ALNCo, Members of the wellbeing Team RH / MH	Ongoing
All	To carry out Equality Impact Assessment on all new and reviewed policies.	When a new policy is written or an existing policy is reviewed an Equality Impact Assessment will be completed.	Headteacher, Governors, ALNCo, Members of curriculum teams JP	Ongoing
Audit of the representation of EAL, ALN and FSM pupils within Pupil Voice groups	Pupil Voice Groups Golftyn Government Eco Committee Criw Cymraeg French Ambassadors Kiva Champions	To ensure that we have a representative of our English as an additional language pupils, ALN and Free school meals pupils across all groups RADY Project 2023-2024.	Pupil Voice Groups and their lead teachers SMT	2024-2025
Collating the views and opinions of our pupil groups and their parents.	Google Form Chats with SMT / Golftyn Government	To ensure our EAL pupils, FSM and ALN pupils are given opportunities to share their views and opinions.	Golftyn Government SMT	Questionnaire sent out 2024
Pupil Voice Golftyn Government	Respecting Rights Award Bronze Award has been achieved. We are working towards our Silver Award.	To ensure all pupils are aware of their Rights as a child. To deliver assemblies and lessons to support this.	SMT RH	2024 – 2025 Ongoing