Poynton High School seeks to promote equality and we celebrate the diversity within our community.  We welcome the public sector equality duty as set out in the Equality Act (2010).

What is the duty?

We must:

• Eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation
• Advance equality of opportunity between different groups
• Foster good relations between different groups

What are the protected characteristics?

The Equality Act 2010 was introduced to ensure protection on the grounds of specific characteristics (referred to as protected characteristics). For schools, this means that it is unlawful to discriminate against students or treat them less favourably because of their sex; race; disability; religion or belief; gender reassignment; sexual orientation; pregnancy or maternity. 

Marriage and civil partnerships and age are also 'protected characteristics'.  These apply to staff but not students in schools.

Our Equality Policy

Our Trust Equality Policy contains information about how our school complies with the Public Sector Equality Duty.  We also give guidance to staff and outside visitors on our approach to promoting equality.

 

Our Equality Objectives 

Our Equality Objectives reflect the school's priorities and draw upon available data and other evidence. Careful analysis of this is undertaken in order to ensure that we are working to achieve improved outcomes for different groups.

Our Equality Objectives, agreed by governors , are below:

• To further develop work to challenge misogyny and all forms of sexism, through the curriculum and wider strategies
• To use performance data to monitor student achievement and respond to variations between groups of learners, subjects, courses and key stages, trends over time and comparisons with other schools.  In particular, we will seek to further improve the progress made by boys at GCSE whilst ensuring that the progress of girls continues to be promoted.
• To engage with the Educate and Celebrate Programme, or equivalent, to ensure that our school continues to be a best practice school.
• To foster good relations between different groups through the use of assemblies, Religious Studies and the PHSE programme, including Student Development Days. 
• To challenge stereotypes that can deny opportunities to students through option and careers guidance and to track options choices that students make
• To further improve accessibility across the school for students, staff and visitors with disabilities, including access to specialist teaching areas.
• To further develop student and staff wellbeing and positive mental health
• To promote equality, diversity and inclusion actions across our staff body.  This will be achieved in several ways, including promoting flexible working, transparency in the gender pay gap and training for staff to eliminate any unconscious bias in recruitment.

Specific tasks relating to these objectives can be found within the School Development Plan.

Progress made

• The introduction of the Educate-Challenge-Empower Charter in 2021
• In 2023 four colleagues have undertaken training supported by Cheshire Police on sexual harassment education.  We are holding a focus week on challenging sexism in 2023
• All staff were trained in unconscious bias in 2022
• We achieved the Educate and Celebrate Best Practice Status for LGBT+ work
• We achieved the CareerMark for careers advice in 2015 and are now building upon this to ensure that we meet the Gatsby benchmarks for Careers guidance
• Personal development, behaviour and welfare was judged to be good by Ofsted in December 2015
• From September 2016 our new data tracking systems enabled teachers to focus even more precisely on identifying and addressing gaps in progress between boys and girls
• We have introduced a uniform policy which does not specify uniform by gender
• The introduction of a gender neutral student leadership structure with Head Students to replace the previous Head Boy and Girl.  This was a result of Student Voice
• Greater use of the student leadership group on particular equality related issues in school, including refurbishment of toilets and uniform
• Work with the Local Authority on equality using a group of students to review policies to ensure they are LGBT+ compliant.  Students have also led an LA-wide conference
• The proactive establishment and analysis of a gender pay gap report and active governor involvement in that process
• The development of resilience-focused courses such as the ‘strong young men’s group’, the ‘strong young women’s group’
• The training of a non-teacher in resilience programmes
• In the last three years we have engaged with the DfE pathfinder project on 'Diversity in Leadership' and nine female middle leaders have been part of this programme
• We have improved accessibility in the school through:
• the building of a new Science laboratory which was specifically designed as an accessible space.  This opened in September 2017
• Improved access to the school through a lift at reception and by the main hall
• A new disabled toilet in lower school
• The creation of a new facility to provide personal care for any students with limited mobility 
• Additional disabled car parking by the main building
• Securing funding for an outdoor gym to better support the inclusion of students with limited mobility