Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
Equality - equal opportunities for all
Diversity - differences and similarities celebrated
Inclusion - involved, valued, welcomed and safe
At Bowker Vale, we are committed to ensuring equality of opportunity for all pupils, staff, parents and carers irrespective of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race and culture, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation (the protected characteristics).
In 2022-23, we formed a dedicated Equality, Diversity and Inclusion working group, which was made up of governors, pupils, staff and parents/carers. The EDI working group meet termly to ensure EDI is embedded and developed throughout our school community.
This year, 2023-24, Mr Kelly has been leading our EDI work and throughout the year we are going to be holding 'Celebrate our Community' events, where we will work alongside our families at Bowker Vale, to help us plan and host these events. These events this year will focus on, in particular, religion or beliefs and race and culture. Please see our updates on our School Blog and below -
The Equality Act 2010 requires schools to publish information to show how we are working to:
- Eliminate discrimination
- Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristicand people who do not share it
- Foster good relations between groups of people
To ensure children at our school understand the protected characteristics – the language which we focus on in our primary school is:
- Disability Equality
- Gender Equality
- Different Families Equality
- Race Equality
- Religion and Belief Equality
- Sexual Orientation
Other groups of pupils we believe it is also important to consider are:
- Children Looked After/ children who were previously looked-after
- Young carers
- Pupils eligible for free school meals or living in poverty
This information forms part of our published information and is designed to show what will be most useful and important to our families.
At Bowker Vale we strive to treat each member of our community as an individual; to make each individual feel valued and to teach our pupils to do the same. Trying to achieve this for all our pupils involves us learning what we all have in common as well as celebrating our many differences. We recognise that children learn best in an environment where everyone feels safe, valued, and welcome in an inclusive way. We believe everyone has the same rights but have individual needs and it is vital to ensure that all aspects of school life are ‘fair’ and appropriate and not necessarily always the same for everyone.
We teach the children about Equality, Diversity and Inclusion embedded throughout the curriculum, through regular opportunities in assembly, during educational visits, with visitors and we aim to reflect these values in our day to day interactions with the children.
We teach children about insults and suitable language and the impact of prejudicial language. We make every effort to make our playgrounds safe and enjoyable places to be. We place a high priority on regular training of staff in areas such as first aid and positive handling techniques. We value our ‘Pupil Voice’ input and their views and opinions are regularly sought in a variety of ways, including using our pupil leader group (the Bowker Leaders) with Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at the heart of everything we do.
