Inclusion

We are committed to inclusion and believe that all children have a common entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum which is accessible to them. A number of children in the course of their school career will experience periods when they have difficulty in keeping up with their peers. Pupils develop at different rates especially in primary education. Springfield is committed to identifying and supporting any child in this position under the Special Educational Needs System.

Equalities

Springfield is inclusive; we focus on the well-being and progress of every child and we are committed to ensuring all members of our community are of equal worth. 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 issues of disadvantage and underachievement of different groups.

We recognise that these duties reflect international human rights standards as expressed in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, and the Human Rights Act 1998.

At Springfield Community School, our current equalities objective is to narrow  the attainment gap between groups of pupils, focusing in particular on:

• Ensure that leadership, teaching, intervention and wider provision for pupils with SEND leads to children with SEN making excellent academic progress and securing strong emotional and social foundations.
• To monitor and analyse pupil achievement by race, gender and disability on a half-termly basis, acting on trends or patterns to raise attainment and accelerate progress.
• Ensure that our staff, community and children do not experience discrimination on the basis of any protected characteristics and actively promote equality of opportunity amongst under-represented groups.

Please read our full Equalities Objectives and Equalities Policy.

Our schools are inclusive; we focus on the well-being and progress of every child and we are committed to ensuring all members of our community are of equal worth.

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 issues of disadvantage and underachievement of different groups.

We recognise that these duties reflect international human rights standards as expressed in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, and the Human Rights Act 1998.

The Public Sector Equality Duty or “general duty”

This requires all public organisations, including schools to

• Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation
• Advance equality of opportunity between different groups

Foster good relations between different groups

We expect all members of the school community and visitors to support our commitment to promoting equalities and meeting the requirements of the Equality Act. We will provide training, guidance and information to enable them to do this.

 What are we doing to ensure that leadership, teaching, intervention and wider provision for pupils with SEND leads to children with SEN making excellent academic progress and securing strong emotional and social foundations.

• Focus on provision for pupils with SEND in all monitoring and respond to any identified areas for development swiftly.
• Provide detailed and thorough handovers to discuss key needs of pupils, sharing one page profiles to support effective transition between year groups.
• Ensure that children with SEND are a focus of termly Pupil Progress Meetings to ensure that teachers are aware of pupils’ current achievement and learning needs and to ensure that accurate and precise planning supports pupils’ progress.
• Provide responsive CPD for teachers and support staff.
• Ensure effective communication with external agencies, referring pupils promptly where we have concerns about learning or other needs.
• Embed WAMHS provision to support pupils and families.

What are we doing to monitor and analyse pupil achievement by race, gender and disability on a half-termly basis, acting on trends or patterns to raise attainment and accelerate progress.

• Carry out regular Fundamental Checks to ensure that teachers are aware of pupils’ current achievement and learning needs and to ensure that accurate and precise planning supports pupils to catch up on / consolidate learning.
• Hold Action Planning meetings with teachers and the SENCo to ensure interventions and support is targeted effectively to have an impact on identified individuals and key groups
• Produce gap analysis of those pupils who are WTS in reading, writing and maths and identify any emerging trends in pupil groups
• Analyse data and respond to findings about the achievement of particular pupil groups.
• Carefully map and monitor intervention which will include precision teaching for identified children with significant gaps and focussing on their next small step in learning.
• Ensure that our intervention plan responds to these gaps and is monitored and evaluated.
• Provide responsive CPD for teachers and support staff.

What are we doing to Ensure that our staff, community and children do not experience discrimination on the basis of any protected characteristics and actively promote equality of opportunity amongst under-represented groups.

• Relaunch Rights respecting and achieve a Gold Award.
• Continue to invest in a more diverse range of fiction and continue to adjust our reading spine to include an increasingly diverse range of authors.
• Complete an audit on our current provision and write an action plan to address gaps and review progress against objectives regularly
• CPD: Provide training for all staff on diversity and representation
• Promote a culture of self-reflection on staff’s personal journey of anti-racism and allyship by drawing on high-quality resources to improve racial literacy
• Establish a ‘Diversity and Representation’ working group which fosters collaboration amongst members of the school community to explore more ways to be a truly inclusive and representative school
• Conduct regular parent/staff/pupil surveys to gather the views of stakeholders across our school community
• Ensure that we attract and retain the best possible staff that reflect our broader community
• Regularly analyse recruitment data and trends with regard to race, gender and disability and report on this to the LAB.
• Deploy best practice in recruitment and retention of teaching staff and eliminate any possible unconscious bias when recruiting staff

Please refer to the equalities policy for full details of our approach to promoting equality.

Further support for SEND pupils comes from via our Accessibility Plan, which can be found on our School Policies page