The Russell School is a fully inclusive school where we focus on the well-being and progress of every child and where all members of our school community are treated equally.

Public bodies, including all 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.

At The Russell School, we take this obligation very seriously and ensure that all of our children can take part as fully as possible in every aspect of school life. We identify any inequalities or barriers to learning that they may have, and work to overcome them, so that every child can fulfil their potential. We revisit and update our duties yearly.  

We strive to:

• Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010
• Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it
• Foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it

The Russell School is a fully inclusive school where we focus on the well-being and progress of every child and where all members of our school community are treated equally. We believe that the Equality Act provides a framework to support our commitment to valuing diversity, tackling discrimination, promoting equality and fostering good relationships between people. It also ensures that we continue to tackle the issues of disadvantage and underachievement for different groups.

Our approach to equality is based on the following key principles:

• We take all reasonable and necessary steps to meet the needs of all children by using a variety of approaches and planning reasonable adjustments for disabled children, thus enabling our children to take as full a part as possible in all the activities of the school. We will make reasonable adjustments to ensure that the school environment and its activities are as accessible and welcoming as possible for children, staff and visitors to the school. We are also committed to ensuring staff with a disability have equality of opportunity
• We foster positive attitudes and relationships, a sense of safety, cohesion and belonging and expect everyone to treat others with dignity and respect
• We ensure that teaching is of the highest quality in order to ensure that all children reach their potential and have equal entitlement to success
• We regularly consider the impact of our curriculum to ensure that it promotes awareness of the rights of individuals and develops the skills of participation and responsible action. We want children to understand and value the diversity that surrounds them, and to challenge prejudice and stereotyping
• We monitor the progress and achievement of children who fall within the appropriate protected characteristics. This information helps us to set equality objectives, remain fully inclusive and ensure children make rapid progress, intervening where necessary, subsequently achieving their full potential
• We ensure that all children have the opportunity to access extra-curricular provision
• We report, respond and monitor any and all racist incidents, identifying trends, patterns and actions
• We observe strong equalities practice in staff recruitment, retention and development
• We work with outside agencies and other schools, where appropriate, to ensure that every opportunity is taken to promote and advance equality
• We monitor bullying and prejudice-related incidents and deal with them effectively. Regular training will be given to new and existing staff to ensure that they are aware of the process for reporting and following up any incidents of bullying
• We have an expectation that all staff will be role-models for equal opportunities, deal with bullying and discriminatory incidents and be able to identify and challenge prejudice and stereotyping
• We ensure that The Russell School is seen as a local school firmly rooted in our community

Equality Objectives 

At The Russell School, we are committed to ensuring equality of education and opportunity for all children, staff, parents and carers, irrespective of race, gender, gender reassignment, disability, belief, religion, sexual orientation, pregnancy or maternity or socio-economic background.

In order to further support our children, achieve the highest standards and ensure fully inclusive teaching, we have set the following objectives which we review every four years:

Objective 1: To monitor and analyse achievement by race, gender and disability and act on any trends or patterns in the data that would require additional support for children

Objective 2: To raise levels of attainment and rate of progress for vulnerable learners

Objective 3: To review levels of parental and pupil engagement in learning and school life, across all activities and within the curriculum, to ensure equity and fairness in access and engagement