At Ormiston Bridge Academy, we have a strong commitment to fairness and equality in everything that we do.
We welcome our public sector duty under the Equality Act 2010 to publish equality objectives and information. The aim for this is to:
- Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010.
- Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it.
- Foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it.
In all our activities we act in accordance with the equality act and our equality policy, as part of this we will:
- Publish information every year about our academy population.
- Outline how we have due regard for equality and how we promote community cohesion.
- Publish equality objectives to show how we plan to tackle particular inequalities and improve what we do.
At the academy, we work together to eliminate all forms of discrimination, harassment and victimisation. Progress towards meeting our equalities objectives is reviewed regularly by the senior leadership team and governing body.
Our academy population is predominately ‘white-British’ and ‘black African or Caribbean’. There are more boys than girls across all year groups. We have a higher than average number of students who are eligible for free school meals. 100% of our students have been identified as having special educational needs, well above the national average.
Our academy improvement plan is compiled each year in discussion with all staff and governors. This makes use of comments from parents and students and aims to address inequalities that are shown through our data and raised through dialogue with all our stakeholders. Our aim is always to ensure that all students reach their full potential and make good progress.
How we have due regard to our duty
The information provided here aims to show that we give careful consideration to equality issues in everything that we do in the academy.
We are committed to working for the equality of all our students. To meet our duty to have due to regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other conduct towards individuals with protected characteristics we:
- Ensure related policies are in place – including anti-bullying, e-safety and cyber-bullying, behaviour, safeguarding and SEND.
- Give due regard of equality issues in decisions and changes we make – engaging with and consulting students, staff, parents and carers, the local community so we can improve our information, learn about the impact of our policies, develop our equality objectives and improve what we do.
- Have in place an accessibility plan.
- Have an induction process for new arrivals and ensure that the admission arrangements do not disadvantage groups of students.
- Monitor/report on exclusions and all incidents of harassment / discrimination.
- Providing adequate training for all staff members and governors including safeguarding and SEN issues.
- Follow our published complaints procedure.
- Adhere to non-discriminatory employment practices.
- Have in place staff and student codes of conduct.
- Have a balanced curriculum with an activity/enrichment programme that is accessible to all students.
- Provide additional support and apply reasonable adjustments where necessary.
- Track and monitor identified groups and their access and performance and aim to reduce gaps between groups.
- Keep a record, where appropriate of the protected characteristics of our students and employees.