Public bodies, including local-authority-maintained schools, are covered by the public sector equality duty in the Equality Act 2010.

As part of our duties we publish:

an Equalities Information profile of our school based upon the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010 – this is updated and published every year and is part of our Equality and Information Objectives document.
our school’s Equality and Information Objectives – these are reviewed annually and updated at least once every 4 years
you can view the Equalities Policy and the Equalities Information and Objectives in the School Polices section of our website.

At Copeland Road Primary School we see all our children as having the right to the best education possible. We believe that all children should be able to fulfill their potential and we work with our children, families and external agencies to make sure this happens.

Our School Commitment

The Equality Act 2010 requires us to publish information that demonstrates that we have due regard for the need 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.

At Copeland Road Primary School

We work to ensure that everyone is treated fairly and respectfully
We want to make sure that our school is a safe and secure place for everyone
We recognise that people have different needs, and we understand that treating people equally does not always involve treating them the same
We aim to make sure that no-one experiences less favourable treatment or discrimination because of:

Their age
A disability
Their ethnicity, colour or national origin
Their gender
Their gender identity (they have reassigned or plan to reassign their gender)
Their marital or civil partnership status
Their being pregnant or having recently had a baby
Their religion or belief
Their sexual identity and orientation.

We recognise that some pupils need extra support to help them to achieve and be successful
We try to make sure that people from different groups are consulted and are involved in our decisions, especially pupils, parents and those of us who can be treated less favourably.

We welcome our duties

To promote community cohesion (under the Education and Inspections Act 2006)
To eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations (under the Equality Act 2010)

We also welcome the emphasis of Ofsted inspections on the importance of accelerating the progress of pupils from groups who are underachieving.

As part of this we will:

Outline how we have due regard for equality and how we promote community cohesion
Publish our Equality Policy
Publish equality information and objectives to show how we plan to tackle particular inequalities and improve what we do

Educate and Celebrate – Gold Award

Educate and Celebrate at Copeland Road Primary School

Assisting schools and academies to comply with this legal duty, ‘Educate & Celebrate’ is a national initiative designed to prepare children and young people for life and to give them a good understanding of how Equality and Diversity is protected by the Equality Act 2010.

The approaches used in ‘Educate and Celebrate’ have been recognised by Ofsted as best practice for taking a whole school approach to teaching equality. We have embedded the ‘Educate and Celebrate’ programme into our curriculum. The programme provides positive relationships and understanding. It is based around a set of stories about different families, relationships and gender identities. We are currently working towards achieving the Gold Award for Educate and Celebrate Best Practice Status.

Educate and Celebrate Bake Off Final

We attended the Educate and Celebrate Durham final Bake Off on Monday 11th February. We had 3 hours to bake and decorate our cake around the theme of peace, activism and reconciliation. The judges were Miss Tess and Jaff from The Futureheads. Even though we didn’t win, Sophie and Macey had a brilliant day and enjoyed themselves.

Choose Respect

It has been Anti-Bullying Week with the theme of ‘Choose Respect’. We ran a cake design competition that was won by Sophie. She has then turned her design into reality (with help from Miss Houghton and Macey!) so we could enter the Educate and Celebrate Bake-a-thon. Fingers crossed for our entry.