Promoting equality and community cohesion at Oakleigh School

Oakleigh School and the community in which we are situated are diverse, multilingual and cohesive. As a diverse school, we value and celebrate the richness of culture, backgrounds and traditions we share. The richness that our diversity brings helps to make Oakleigh an excellent place to learn and work. Our school is responsive to the spiritual, moral, social and cultural needs of its users and the community.

At Oakleigh School and the Early Years Intervention Centre we have a strong commitment to fairness and equality in everything that we do.

• We try to ensure that everyone is treated fairly and with respect.
  We work hard to make sure that the school is a safe and secure environment for everyone.
• We recognise that people have different needs, and we understand that treating people equally does not always involve treating them all exactly the same.
• We recognise that for some pupils extra support is needed to help them to achieve and be successful.
• We try to make sure that people from different groups are consulted and involved in our decisions, for example through talking to parents and carers, and listening to our pupils in whichever way they communicate to us.
• We aim to make sure that no-one experiences harassment, less favourable treatment or discrimination because of their age; any disability they may have; their ethnicity, colour or national origin; their gender; their gender identity or reassignment; their marital or civil partnership status; being pregnant or having recently had a baby; their religion or beliefs; their sexual identity and orientation.

We welcome our general duty under the Equality Act 2010 to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination; to advance equality of opportunity; and to foster good relations. See also our Equalities Policy and SMSC Development.

We also welcome our specific duties to publish information about our school population; to explain how we have due regard for equality; and to publish equality objectives which show how we plan to tackle any particular inequalities or disadvantages found.

Meeting our duties to promote community cohesion, and the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils, supports how we meet the needs of different groups of pupils and how we foster good relations.

We welcome the emphasis in the Ofsted inspection framework on the importance of narrowing gaps in achievement which can affect groups such as those outlined below, however, our cohorts of children are exceptionally small, and we support children’s learning on such an individual basis which helps them to achieve as much as they possibly can.

The groups can include:

• pupils from certain ethnic and cultural backgrounds
• pupils who are supported by the pupil premium
• pupils who have disabilities
• pupils who have special educational needs
• boys in certain subjects, and girls in certain other subjects

For more information about our work on equalities at Oakleigh School please contact:

Sandra Down 
(Member of staff with responsibility for equality issues)
Tel: 020 8368 5336
Email: sandra.dowm@oakleigh.barnet.sch.uk  

Sean Saunders and Jane Nicklin 
(Members of governing body with responsibility for equality issues)
Tel: 020 8368 5336
Email: office@oakleigh.barnetmail.net