How do we ensure EVERYONE is represented in our school?

At Laycock Primary, we have launched an ‘Equities Working Group’ amoungst our staff and Governors. Since the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, staff, children, governors and our community have been engaging in discussions around the topics raised. Our Equities group has been created to champion change for these in-equities in our community.

As an organisation, we have the responsibility to drive towards equity for all of our families and children in our school, community and world that we live in. The diversity within our school strengthens our community and provides the children opportunities to learn about each, ask respectful questions, appreciate, empathise and to be up to date and aware of national and international happenings, such as the events in America that resulted in George Floyd’s death in 2020.

Below are our initiatives that we want to achieve as a school to work towards an equal community that appreciates, celebrates and is curious about all inequities that we need to question, challenge and correct around us.

We have also looked at our curriculum through a social in justice lens, allowing opportunity to discuss in-equity.

Equality or Equity?

We have changed our language to focus on equity: ensuring that all children are able to have the same starting place in the world. We aim to support children and prepare them for their teenage and adult lives.

A message from the Head Teacher

At Laycock Primary School, we believe in treating everyone with respect and fairness. Children, parents and staff are all part of our school community and, as such, are valued for their unique life experiences and the contributions they make to the school.

At Laycock we strive to promote equality and celebrate diversity in all its forms. We take account of differences and strive to remove barriers and disadvantages which people may face. We firmly believe that diversity is a real strength of our school, which should be respected and celebrated by all those who learn, teach and visit here.

At Laycock, we strive to foster a shared sense of cohesion, belonging and identity. We want all members of our school community to feel a sense of belonging and to feel that they are respected and able to participate fully in school life. We are an inclusive school where we focus on the well-being and progress of every child and where all members of our community are of equal worth.

In addition to this we aim to equip all children with the tools necessary to contribute successfully to a world where social injustice can be a thing of the past. Through our PSHE curriculum, children learn about tolerance, diversity, respect and prejudice. It is our aim for each and every one of our pupils to see themselves in our curriculum.

How are we working with Islington to enable change

Our Local Authority (LA), Islington, have created a set of commitments to track race in work and our community

1. Self-development: improve professionals own personal knowledge about racism and unconscious bias
2. Recruitment and development of staff to ensure black and white ethnic colleagues are represented
3. Grow confidence to challenge racism

We have worked with the LA to adopt their Equality Charter and continue to work with them to develop the idea of equity across our school.

The LA are turning their attention to BAME groups in light of the George Floyd case in 2020. We understand that this is a needed opportunity to reset our processes and protocol to ensure that all children, adults and families are represented within our school. We are working as a challenge our previous built in narrative and create a new approach.

Curriculum content

We have, and still are, working extremely hard to ensure our curriculum reflects the community we serve. As a result, we have evaluated all of our subjects and picked out both planned and possible opportunities to discussed social injustice and inequity. See in more detail here. *insert*

We have done a complete audit on the books we have in school to ensure that all children are represented within our school library, class reading corners and curriculum. Have a look at the books we teach (including links to ‘read alouds’ on YouTube):

BAME

Over 75% of our children and families come from BAME backgrounds and, as a school, we have the responsibility to ensure that every child feels represented in our provision. We strive to teach anti-racism in everything we do: our teaching & learning, our behaviour policy, our day to day actions. In the light of 2020 Black Lives Matter, we have turned our attention to evaluating our curriculum to ensure that our BAME groups are reflected in learning, discussion and celebration around our school. We know that teaching children about black history is relevant to them as young people living in London.

See our anti-racists lessons embedded in the PSHE curriculum.

We have shared a parent’s guide to Black Lives Matter during the protests in March:

Disability

Twenty percent of our children and staff are deaf at Laycock Primary. Alongside that, we welcome children of varying needs, abilities and disabilities. We work hard to ensure all children feel welcomed, comfortable and -most importantly- able to thrive. Our mainstream classes are capped at 25 children, our Deaf Provision classes are capped at 10 children and our Learning Classes are capped at 10 children also. We have an Inclusions manager & SENCo, Assistant SENCo and four learning mentors to be able to provide the best support our children require. Alongside the Disability Act, we stand side by side, wanting everyone to have equity in life.

You can see more about our deaf provision and how it is integrated in our mainstream school.

You can see the units we have planned to teach Deaf Awareness within PSHE.

Gender

Every child is taught that they can achieve what they want, if they work hard. We strive to teach all children to aspire to any career they desire. Our Curriculum has been carefully tailored to facilitate opportunities to open up avenues for children to explore a wide variety of ideas, activities and careers. We have used our school role models to support these dreams, proving that equity is important for both females and males. Books have been carefully selected within our curriculum to ensure we represent boys and girls doing all kind of things that may be seen as stereo typically one gender related. We say no to this and encourage our children to break barriers, smash stereotypes and be the new normal.

You can see the units we have planned for gender equality within PSHE.

LGBTQ+

At Laycock, we serve a diverse community, including people and families from the LGBTQ+ community and therefore we champion Stonewall and LGBTQ+ rights. Stonewall is a longstanding organisation that fights for, supports and celebrates LGBTQ+ equality across the world. We stand side by side, wanting everyone to have equity in life.

You can see the units we have planned to teach appreciation and acceptance of LGBTQ+ within PSHE.

Stonewall have also provided home learning packs: