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Hampden Gurney School – Equal Opportunity and multicultural/Antiracist policy
The staff and governors of Hampden Gurney stand against racism and all forms of discrimination on the grounds of ethnic origin, religion, gender or disability. We are committed to promoting understanding of the principles and practices of equality and justice.
Aims:
- The primary objective of this school will be to educate, develop and prepare all our pupils for life whatever their gender, colour, origin, culture or ability.
- To promote justice, equality of opportunity and fair treatment for all and thereby allow all pupils, irrespective of their ethnic origin, to achieve the level of success and self respect which they deserve, whilst retaining their cultural identity;
- To instil in pupils an awareness of racism and to establish an environment where the school becomes effective in reducing prejudice and raising self-esteem;
- To prepare children for living in a complex, multicultural society;
- To promote an understanding of a variety of cultures, valuing the positive contribution that these cultures make to the community;
- To provide a safe and welcoming place for all its members;
- To provide an environment where racist assumptions, attitudes and behaviour are not accepted and are continually challenged;
- To provide a curriculum which emphasises the positive aspects of all cultures;
- To support the Local Authority in its multicultural and antiracist policies, and to take the appropriate action to deal with any form of discrimination or racism within school;
- To recognise, in our teaching and learning, the positive contributions to the development of Science, Technology and the Arts, which have been made by the different cultures;
- To adopt the view that cultural diversity is a positive advantage. Pupils are often the most valuable multicultural resource in the classroom – with personal experiences of festivals, food, dress etc;
- To contribute towards impacting a sense of citizenship in the pupils;
- The teachers will, by careful use of language and choice of resources, avoid reinforcing stereotypical views of society;
- To use self-evaluation by whole school discussion to assess the implementation of this policy;
- All subject coordinators will continually review their schemes of work in the light of this policy with respect to content, methodology, aims and resources.
Admission
The school follows the LEA and Governing Body Admission Policies that do not permit gender, race, colour or disability to be used as criteria for admission.
Registration
Pupils’ names will be accurately recorded and correctly pronounced. Pupils will be encouraged to accept and respect names from other cultures.
Reading schemes, books and other literary resources:
Staff will choose and use resources which:
· Portray a worldview as seen from different cultural perspectives and thereby communicate how it feels to be of another ethnic or cultural group;
· Are factually accurate and use up-to-date text and illustrations;
· Show children of different ethnic groups involved in the activities described e.g. physics, design, music, mathematics etc.;
· Positively and realistically portray children from a variety of ethnic and cultural groups and class backgrounds;
· Children from ethnic minority groups can find characters that enhance their self-esteem, where ethnic minority characters have important roles and adults hold position of authority;
· Have illustrations that avoid caricature;
· Accurately reflect the population of Britain today;
· Use dialect appropriately and not to ridicule;
· Use a range of folk tales from different oral or cultural traditions.
The Curriculum:
All pupils must have equal access to the school’s curriculum. Hampden Gurney aims to provide a broadly based and balanced curriculum which will enable pupils to achieve high standards and which makes provision for developing the particular abilities and full potential of each pupil as an individual. Pupils and staff will give all languages spoken in the school recognition and respect. Curriculum support will be provided for children who have English as an additional language. This will ensure that pupils who do not speak English at home, will receive language support and gain maximum access to the curriculum.
Action to be taken when racist behaviour is suspected:
If racism is suspected, staff will talk to the suspected victim, the suspected racist and any witnesses. If any degree of racism is identified, the following action will be taken;
Help, support and counselling will be given as appropriate to both the victims and those displaying racist behaviour.
The victim will be supported in the following ways:
· By offering them an immediate opportunity to talk about the experience with their class teacher, or another member of staff that they choose;
· By informing the victim’s parents/carers;
· By offering continuing support when they feel that they need it;
· By arranging for them to be escorted to and from the school premises, if necessary;
· By taking one or more of the seven disciplinary steps as described below, to prevent more racism.
We also discipline yet try to help those displaying racist behaviour in the following ways:
· By talking about what happened, to discover why they became involved;
· By informing the offender’s parents/carers;
· By continuing to work with the offenders in order to get rid of prejudiced attitudes as far as possible;
· By taking one or more of the seven disciplinary steps as described below, to prevent more racism.
Disciplinary steps:
1. Those displaying racist behaviour will be warned officially to stop offending.
2. The offender’s parents/carers will be informed.
3. They could be excluded from their class for a fixed period of time.
4. If offenders do not stop the racist behaviour, they will be suspended from school for a fixed period (one or two days).
5. If they continue, they will be recommended for a longer term fixed term exclusion of up to five days or for an indefinite period.
6. If they do not end such behaviour, they will be recommended for permanent exclusion (expulsion).
Equal opportunities for staff:
The school values diversity amongst the staff. It aims to provide equal opportunity. In all appointments, the best candidate will be appointed, based upon strict professional criteria.
All staff should be aware of possible cultural assumptions and bias within their own attitudes. Close liaison with families in the school is beneficial for all concerned.
All staff need to be positive role models and actively discourage discrimination, stereotyping and prejudice.
Monitoring and Evaluation:
This policy will be monitored by the Headteacher, with regular consultation with all members of staff. The policy will be reviewed annually and amended as necessary.
All racist incidents will be recorded in the incident book, and in accordance with the School’s behaviour policy, offenders will be dealt with appropriately and immediately. The school will use the Westminster monitoring racist incident form as part of our formal reporting system. Hampden Gurney will work closely with external agencies and referrals will be made if required to ensure that all children are receiving the appropriate level of support.
Evaluations of all racist incidents will be made through the use of the racist reporting forms which will indicate the nature and number of incidents reported, analysis of all incidents and actions taken on each occasion.
Original policy written December 2002
Revised March 2005
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