Our Equality Statement

Berkeley Primary School's Equality Statement (Policy) integrates our statutory duties in relation to race, disability and gender and promotes community cohesion. The duties cover governors, staff, pupils and people using the services of the school, such as parents/carers.

It also addresses the legislation relating to religion or belief, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, pregnancy or maternity and age and therefore includes our priorities and actions to eliminate discrimination and harassment for these equality areas. Our Equality Policy enables us to achieve a framework for action and ensures that we meet our responsibilities of the public sector duties in an inclusive way.

The Equality Act 2010 is, therefore, an important and significant piece of legislation because its key provisions underpin the aim of Berkeley Primary School: an equal and inclusive society in which difference is understood and respected. This school is committed to meeting its obligations within the law.  Under the statutory duties all schools have responsibilities to promote race, disability and gender equality.

We will continue to meet our statutory duties by reporting on the progress of the Equality Statement and action plan. This will be reviewed by our Governors and will cover activity undertaken in relation to the equality strands and promoting community cohesion.

Our aims

The primary aim of Berkeley Primary School is to enable all pupils to take part as fully as possible in every part of school life by developing each child’s self-confidence, recognising their strengths and encouraging them to achieve their full potential. At Berkeley Primary School, we will take steps to advance equality of opportunity, foster good relations and eliminate discrimination or harassment across all the protected characteristics (age, race, gender reassignment, disability, marriage and civil partnership, religion and belief, pregnancy and maternity, gender, sexual orientation) within the school community.

Public bodies, including local authority maintained schools, are covered by the public sector equality duty in the Equality Act 2010 and the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) Regulations 2011.

Accessibility Plan

The aim of this plan is to ensure that all students have full access to the curriculum and to the school. The school already provides for the additional needs of disabled pupils who have special educational needs (SEND).

One of our duties is to plan to increase over time the accessibility of school for disabled pupils, staff and visitors. A person has a disability if he or she has a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse affect on their ability to carry out normal day-to- day activities.

As a school we will work alongside the LA in order to:

• Increase access for disabled pupils and parents/carers to the school curriculum. This covers teaching and learning and the wider curriculum of the school such as participation in after-school clubs, leisure and cultural activities or school visits.

• Improve access to the physical environment of school. This covers improvements to the physical environment of the school and physical aids to access education.

• Improve the delivery of written information to disabled pupils and parents/carers. This will include planning to make written information that is normally provided by the school to its pupils available to disabled pupils and parents/carers. Examples might include newsletters, handouts, timetables, textbooks and information about school events. The information should take account of pupils’ disabilities and pupils’ and parents’/carers’ preferred formats and be made available within a reasonable time frame, on request.

The school is accessible for people with disability;

• there are disabled toilets
• we have wide corridors
• we have wide entrance doors
• there are disabled parking spaces for parents and visitors to use
• access to the main entrance is via doors that automatically open
• sockets are set at an appropriate height
• colour schemes have been chosen for clear definition

Please click on the link below to view the full plan