Equality & Diversity

The Equality Act 2010 combined nine separate pieces of legislation into one single Act simplifying the law and strengthening it in important ways to help tackle discrimination and inequality.

The Act introduced 9 protected characteristics and as a school we do not prejudice and are fully inclusive and supportive of our whole learning community.

Our Equality objectives are:

• To ensure that the curriculum offer for Maths and English accelerates outcomes for all groups of children, at all key stages.
• To ensure that we have a personalised, enriched and full curriculum offer to add cultural capital and life chances
• To close the gap between the most disadvantaged pupils and other pupils
• To improve our school attendance

British Values

At Kestrel Mead, we recognise the importance of preparing children for life in modern Britain and promoting values that are a key part of 21st century British society.

The British values are: mutual respect and beliefs, tolerance of those with different faiths, democracy, rule of law and individual liberty. These values are promoted and reinforced in school in a number of ways.

Our Vision

At Kestrel Mead we are a community where everyone is treated fairly and with respect. We want everyone to reach their potential and we recognise that for some pupils extra support is needed to help them achieve and be successful.

We aim to create children that are:

• Respectful towards others
• Have an appreciation of similarities and differences
• Able to navigate the challenges they may face
• Accepting of themselves and others
• Confident in who they are
• Aware of what makes them unique
• Excellent role models for others
• Have a love of language
• Celebrate and explore different religions and cultures
• Curious about what makes our school unique

How do we do this?

Our school motto is ‘Be the best you can be’ and our core values are #resilience #respect # compassion and #curiosity. Although these are our core values, we teach and develop many other character behaviours that will create pupils who are ready to face the opportunities and challenges that the next stage of education and beyond will hold. We are committed to promoting equality throughout everything we do and as according to the Equality Act 2010.

Our core values can be seen throughout our school day and in everything the children and staff do. We learn with and from one another; creating a school environment which nurtures the whole child and enables each one of us to realise our full potential.

Our Religious Education sessions follow the agreed SACRE syllabus which aims to provide for the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of our children. Through discussion, practical activities and creative tasks children are able to explore some of life’s ‘big questions’ and both express and listen to different opinions about them. Children learn about Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism and the core values to each religion and have the opportunity to visit places of worship, whilst spending time exploring the similarities and links between each of them.

Pupil voice is a very important part of our school. Each class democratically elects members to the Primary Leadership Team, Health and Wellbeing team and the Eco team. These teams meet regularly with key staff to share the children’s voice and work together to improve our school from lunchtimes to biking and scooting to school.

To further empower our pupils we have launched Votes for Schools as a way to promote British Values, pupil voice and current affairs within the classroom. Each week, the children are given a question relating to current issues around the world and are able to learn some background behind each week’s question before debating the topic and finally voting. The children have the opportunity to see how their views compare with those in the city as well with the rest of the country. Children are given the opportunity to build their confidence when sharing their ideas and views with their peers, as well as gaining an understanding of topics such as politics and the world around them.

Our assemblies cover religious celebrations, current affairs, British values and national events. Each week staff share a thought of the week that draws upon key elements of these according to what is happening in our community or in the world. We aim to widen the children’s knowledge and experience of what is relevant in today’s society and multi-cultural issues in order to support them in making informed choices.

In lessons, children are encouraged to be independent and resilient learners and to make informed choices. At the beginning of each year, children spend time exploring key character traits through our character fortnight including teamwork, pride, commitment and responsibility as well as our four character muscles. During this time children work together with the teacher to agree class rules, elect pupil voice leaders, learn about daily monitors and their roles and explore conflict resolution.

As a multicultural school we celebrate and explore religious festivals including Christmas, Diwali, Eid, Vaisakhi and Easter. Classes work together to put together a performance that showcases the celebration through stories, poetry, song or dance and share these in our celebration sharing assemblies across both buildings. We also love to celebrate with our community through our Diwali Community party, Christmas and Summer fairs, Christmas carols at TESCO and in many other ways.