Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at King’s Oak

Kings Oak School is committed to promoting Equality, Diversity and Inclusion throughout the school. By recognising and appreciating individual needs and differences the school demonstrates its respect for the communities that it serves and is a place where both students and staff thrive.

Kings Oak School makes the following commitments with regards to our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion charter;

• To provide a school environment that welcomes, values, protects, and respects diversity.
• To close the attainment gap between different groups within our school, including the most vulnerable and those who share a protected characteristic, to ensure that every student has equal opportunity to achieve their potential.
• To foster positive attitudes, relationships, and challenge discrimination.
• To actively promote mutual respect between groups and communities different from each other and understand that diversity is a strength.
• To eradicate and challenge the use of homophobic, sexist, racist and other discriminative language by students in the school.
• For all students to feel secure, valued, and respected, with a shared sense of belonging and to feel part of the Kings Oak family.
• To help all students develop a sense of personal and cultural diversity.
• To remove barriers to access, participation, progress and achievement.
• For all students to respect and view differences in each other positively, whether arising from race, gender, ability or disability.
• To develop common values of citizenship through dialogue, mutual respect and acceptance of all people.

Equality Objectives

Objective 1

Elimination of discrimination and other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010 including protected characteristics.

• We have chosen this objective because as a federation, we have signed up within the first cohort for Hemisphere training as we recognise that the school community as a whole, needs to focus upon the outcomes of unconscious bias and how to negate this.
• We have also chose this objective as we are an award winning organisation within Tender and wish to use this work with our pupils, governors, staff and parents
• We are continuing to work with Embrace - which looks at the impact of harmful behaviours from men - as this work has been impactful since we implemented it in 2021.

To achieve this objective we will:

• Train all staff and governors using the Hemisphere and Tender materials in Autumn 1. This will form part of the Governing Board agenda, it will also be present on staff meeting agendas, daily briefing and within line management/performance management - so that we have quantifiable data based on reduction of incidents.
• Train parents in both Hemisphere and Tender materials in Autumn 2 so that they are aware of the work the school is undertaking, and are able to have conversations around bias and other conduct that has been prohibited by the Equality Act - allow us to reinforce the work undertaken in school. This will be revisited termly to ensure that parents are kept well informed.
• Pupils to receive input from Hemisphere, Tender and Embrace (according to Year Group and appropriateness of materials) to ensure that there is a clear and open dialogue with students. This has been placed on the School Council Agenda as of July 2024 and will continue throughout the academic year..

Objective 2

Advancing equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it

• We have chosen this objective because as a federation, we have always looked to promote and protect characteristics (as mentioned in the act) and have actively engaged with various stakeholders to ensure that our recruitment and visibility is positive.
• Undertake an analysis of recruitment data and trends in regard to race, disability and any gender pay gap by July, and report on this to the staffing and pay sub-committee of the governing board.
• We will revisit our recruitment processes and ensure that our advertisements are non biassed and clear about the school's ethos with regards to protected characteristics.(Autumn 1)
• We have made progress towards this objective already, as we have key members of staff who represent various groups and are highly visible to the entire community.

Objective 3

Increase the representation of teachers from local Black and minority ethnic communities and those from protected sexual/gender characteristics over a 4-year period (from this July to July in 4 years' time), so that this group increases from 10% to 25% of the teaching workforce.

• We have chosen this objective because we believe that it is vital that the community sees itself reflected within the education system and shows that change is achievable. 
• Our cohorts are mixed between White British, Black and other minority ethnic communities and we have worked with the school council to ensure that not only school staff, but the governing board clearly represents these communities.
• To achieve this, we have already proactively engaged so that we can recruit governors who are able to represent the diversity of our community, and we have already increased our workforce representation by over 40% but we recognise that our SLT is under represented in this regard except for protected sexual characteristics as the Executive Head is an openly gay man.
• Over the next 4 years, we are committed to ensuring that our recruitment processes support applications from specific communities especially for senior roles.

Building a Curriculum Rich in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

Before the reviewing and redeveloping our schools curriculum it was first important to establish a common understanding of each of the following. 

Equality:

Means fairness. We must ensure that individuals, or groups of individuals, are not treated less favourably because of their characteristics. We also must ensure that those who may be disadvantaged can get the tools they need to access the same, fair opportunities as their peers.

Diversity:

Is recognising, respecting and celebrating each other's differences. A diverse environment is one with a wide range of backgrounds and mindsets, which allows for an empowered culture of creativity and innovation.

Inclusion:

Means creating an environment where everyone feels welcome and valued. An inclusive environment can only be created once we are more aware of our unconscious biases, and have learned how to manage them.

Unconscious Bias

Your background, personal experiences, societal stereotypes and cultural context can have an impact on your decision and actions without you realising. Implicit or unconscious bias happens by our brains making incredibly quick judgments and assessments of people and situations without us realising. Our biases are influenced by our background, cultural environment and personal experiences. We may not even be aware of these views and opinions, or be aware of their full impact and implications.

While creating a inclusive curriculum teachers have considered the intent of the knowledge and skills taught. The implementation of the curriculum within the classroom and the impact it has and will have on our students. The curriculum is designed to encompass all of the protected characteristic under the equality act 2010 listed below:

• Age: A person belonging to a particular age (for example 32 year olds) or range of ages (for example 18 to 30 year olds).

• Disability: A person has a disability if she or he has a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on that person's ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.

• Gender reassignment: The process of transitioning from one sex to another.

• Marriage and Civil Partnership: Marriage is a union between a man and a woman or between a same-sex couple. Same-sex couples can also have their relationships legally recognised as 'civil partnerships'. Civil partners must not be treated less favourably than married couples (except where permitted by the Equality Act).

• Pregnancy and Maternity: Pregnancy is the condition of being pregnant or expecting a baby. Maternity refers to the period after the birth, and is linked to maternity leave in the employment context. In the non-work context, protection against maternity discrimination is for 26 weeks after giving birth, and this includes treating a woman unfavourably because she is breastfeeding.

• Race: It refers to a group of people defined by their race, colour, and nationality (including citizenship) ethnic or national origins.

• Religion or Belief: Religion refers to any religion, including a lack of religion. Belief refers to any religious or philosophical belief and includes a lack of belief. Generally, a belief should affect your life choices or the way you live for it to be included in the definition.

• Sex: A man or a woman.

• Sexual orientation: Whether a person's sexual attraction is towards their own sex, the opposite sex or to both sexes.

King’s Oaks curriculum will continue to be reviewed and develop through the expertise of our teachers inline with our students needs, while extending their understanding of equality, diversity and inclusion to all learners. Students are taught that discrimination on the grounds of any of these characteristics is illegal and that discrimination can take many forms including direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, bullying, harassment and victimisation. At King’s Oak we will not tolerate any form of discrimination and tailor our curriculum to challenge this.

When subjects leaders design the content of our school curriculum they think about the makeup of our school community. Trips, visits, resources and books are then developed and used to reflect our diverse community. This allows students to explore, express and celebrate their identity through the lens of different subject areas. Our community and the wider community is also reflected and celebrated throughout the school in displays. Although throughout the year King’s Oak School takes part in a wide variety of themed celebration days. We have design our curriculum in a way that embeds equality, diversity and inclusion throughout and it is an integral part of the development of each students education. Opportunities for students to reflect on and challenge individual and group behaviour, attitude and biases are planned throughout the curriculum. These help the students to understand how to respect and challenge other people's views in an appropriate and educated way. Students learn about stereotypes and bias and how to overcome and question these. Students are taught to critically question sources of information and knowledge they read and view, looking for the possibility of fake news and how that can affect people's viewpoints and opinions. They are taught skills in thinking critically with a open mind and understanding when approaching information. The curriculum design considers and celebrates how people with protected characteristics have made important contributions to different subjects locally, nationally and globally. Through the curriculum our staff explore stereotype views within societies and from personal perspectives around job and careers roles. This is also supported through and extensive careers programme (Please see the link below for more information). This helps to instill confidence, belief and high aspiration in our students. As well as giving them the platform and foundation to strive for their dreams.