At St Stephen’s School we are committed to seeking equality for all members of our school community in line with the Public Sector Equality Duty. We have strong core values of inclusion, tolerance and respect which permeate our school ethos.
We aim to provide a secure, inclusive and purposeful environment in which we can all learn. All members of our community should feel valued, respected, cared for, and encouraged to grow and develop emotionally, socially and academically. We aim to identify and remove barriers to success for all those in our school community regardless of gender, ethnicity, faith, sexual orientation, disability or additional needs.
Our responsibilities lie within the roles of both employer and educator:
- We are an equal opportunities employer, appointing the most suitable people to our team regardless of gender, ethnicity, faith, sexual orientation, disability or additional need.
- We actively further the continuous professional development of all staff.
- We value, and actively encourage the engagement of all pupils in all aspects of our curriculum, and aim to provide a curriculum which is equally relevant, inspiring and challenging to all pupils
- We closely track the achievement of all pupils to ensure that they have an equal opportunity to succeed, and target intervention groups, classroom support and 1 to 1 tutoring as appropriate.
- We identify whole school patterns of achievement related to key groups within the school and address at a strategic level.
- We encourage all pupils to fully engage with the extended school provision (breakfast club and enrichment programme), directing pupil premium funding to support families in overcoming financial barriers.
- We act swiftly and strongly in response to any incident in which one child unkindly highlights the physical or cultural differences of another. These incidents are extremely rare at St Stephen’s.
All members of the School Community are involved in developing, implementing and monitoring the equalities policy and practice.