The Equality Act 2010 was introduced to ensure protection from discrimination, harassment and victimisation 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 gender; race; disability; religion or belief; gender reassignment; sexual orientation; pregnancy or maternity.
Marriage and civil partnerships and age are also ‘protected characteristics’, but do not apply to our provision for students.

Under the Act, the school is expected to comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty. This requires us to:

Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited by or under the Act.
Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and people who do not share it.
Foster good relations between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not share it.

As a school we are also required to follow the specific duties. This means we need to:

Consider and publish how we are complying with the Equality Duty.
Define one or more equality objectives that support the aims of the General Equality Duty and review them at least every four years.
Ensure that the objectives are specific and measurable.
Publish the objectives so that they are accessible to the public.
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.