Equalities in schools
Schools and governing bodies fall under the same legislation as we do, but by working together, we can all achieve our targets and avoid duplicating plans and procedures.
There are a number of publications from local, regional and national bodies on equalities and community cohesion issues, to help schools deliver equalities objectives and actions within their own school environment, to improve the educational experience of children and young people, regardless of their identity, circumstances and background.
All documents are publicly available to share and no copyright infringement is intended.
Model Schools Strategic Equality Plan
This document is intended to show schools and governing bodies an example of what their own policy could look like. It contains a lot of detail that school may wish to edit or add in local context and is only intended as a guide.
Schools may for example choose to merge and copy parts of other schemes, such as their current race or disability schemes, which this plan will replace as a comprehensive equality plan and set of objectives.
Model Schools Strategic Equality Plan 2012 (pdf 210kb)
Governors Wales Equalities Fact File 03/11
This guide was produced jointly by Governors Wales and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (Wales).
Schools have obligations under the Equality Act 2010 as employers, bodies that carry out public functions and as service providers. For Foundation, Voluntary Aided schools, the governing body is the employer whilst in community and Voluntary Controlled schools, the LA is the employer but the governing body is responsible for staffing matters, etc.
Governors Wales Equalities Fact File (pdf 134kb)
Respect and resilience
The ‘Respect and Resilience’ document was produced to provide guidance and advice to schools on how they can further develop this highly important area of policy in line with the School Effectiveness Framework.
It is clear that schools which are community focused, and the teachers and staff who work with young people, have a crucial role to play in ensuring that they have a safe and supportive environment in which to question things, but also to understand and foster tolerance and respect for others.
Respect and Resilience (pdf 1.3mb)
WLGA guidance - equalities and schools
This is a set of documents produced by the Welsh Local Government Association as a national resource for schools, governing bodies and local education authorities.
Briefing on Public Sector Duties Wales 2011 (pdf 46kb)
Equalities Issues in Education 2011 (pdf 87kb)
Common Equality Risks in Education 2011 (pdf 88.kb)
Discriminatory bullying and incidents in schools
Since September 2012, all schools in the county borough are required to submit termly monitoring forms of discriminatory incidents to the Council. Nil returns are also required to ensure that the schools are being open and transparent about any issues that may have arisen as non-disclosure of incidents could have serious consequences.
We have produced a report covering all the work that has been done from 2011 to 2013 on these issues, including numbers of incidents, what type and what is being done to raise awareness of these issues and tackle them.
Education, Schools and Equalities Report 2015 (pdf 552kb)
The form used to monitor these incidents is shown below for information.
Discriminatory Incident Reporting Form (xls 92kb)
Show Racism the Red Card - Caerphilly Project 2014
During the academic year 2013-2014, 16 primary schools, 8 comprehensive schools and 22 youth clubs were provided with Show Racism the Red Card training and a total of 2629 children and young people received this training.
Show Racism the Red Card is an anti-racism charity which aims to raise awareness amongst young people about racism in society. They make use of the powerful position of professional footballers and other sports stars as role models to deliver an anti-racism message.
The full evaluation report can be downloaded below.
Show Racism the Red Card - Caerphilly Project Report 2014 (PDF)