'The special qualities, differences and abilities of everyone in our Almond Hill community are valued and celebrated'
Miss Porter - Diverity Lead
Equality and diversity at Almond Hill
Our school is committed to ‘Aim High’ and ensuring equality of education and opportunity for all pupils, staff, carers, and parents who form part of our school community and receive services from our school. We aim to promote an ethos of inclusivity and to celebrate the diversity of all those who are connected with our school to ensure all groups prosper regardless of the protective characteristics.
At Almond Hill, we aim to foster good relationship between those who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. We promote friendship, tolerance, and understanding of uniqueness. This may be achieved through teaching in RE and PSHCE lessons, in reading text and stories from different cultures, learning a modern language or exploring music from different parts of the world for example. We discuss world and current issues in assemblies and invite our children to lead assemblies. We promote links with our local community and welcome visitors with special knowledge to support our learning and understanding.
What is equality?
Equality is ensuring individuals or groups that are not treated differently or less favourably on the basis of specific protected characteristic, including areas of race, gender, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation and age.
How is the Equality Act 2010 relevant to young people's lives?
Discriminatory behaviour often stems from ignorance. A lack of understanding of different cultures, beliefs or lifestyles is often a factor in things like bullying.
It’s essential to educate young people about equality, diversity, identity and human rights so that they learn to respect others, celebrate diversity and recognise prejudice and discrimination.
As children get older, they’ll increasingly find themselves in positions where issues of inequality and discrimination can impact them: in school, in further education, in work and in wider society.
Teaching children about their rights and the rights of others is important, and knowledge of the Equality Act 2010 will mean children can speak out on issues related to equality, now and in the future.
What is diversity?
Diversity involves promoting and celebrating the differences between us. It’s associated with promoting human rights, and is based on principles like dignity and respect. It requires taking into account and valuing people’s different backgrounds, knowledge and experiences, and creating an environment that makes positive use of these differences.
What’s the difference between equality and diversity?
Equality involves making sure everyone has equal opportunities, ensuring that nobody is treated differently because of protected characteristics.
Diversity involves considering the differences between people and valuing these differences as a positive.
On Monday, the Y6 children were very lucky to have a visitor from the local Jewish community. Mrs Lederman spoke about her life growing up as a Jew and the religion in the broader sense. This linked in really well with the work the children are currently doing on World War II in both English and History. The children got to try on some traditional Jewish clothing: The 'tallit gadol' and the 'kippah'. The children were even treated to some honey cake - a favoured Jewish treat.
Each classroom throughout the school has a wonderful, unique board dedicated to the heritage and culture of the children in that class.
Some children in Year 5 recently took part in a survey about diversity, heritage and racism. They were asked a variety of questions and below are some of the things they said.
The children liked having their heritage shown on display and found it interesting to learn about other children's heritage too.
Some children referred to specific lessons where their personal heritage was mentioned (learning about Denmark in history and a Polish architect in art) and said it made them feel proud and they liked other children learning about something special to them.
One child learnt things about their heritage that they didn't know before!
The children felt that adults in the school knew a lot about racism and could deal with incidents well.
-The children all said they felt safe at our school.
The children knew what to do if they saw or heard something they thought was racist.
Have a look at the fabulous classroom displays below:
Thank you everyone who took part in our Easter home learning project. We have had a huge number of amazing work showcasing how different and special we all are. The children (and parents, I'm sure!) have put in so much hard work into their beautiful posters, many of which are on display in classrooms now. Here is a lovely selection:
Children in Year 5 celebrated Hanukkah this week with Mrs Start. They enjoyed some yummy food like doughnuts (which have a particularly special meaning to Jewish people) and chocolate money to symbolise the Gelt. A big thank you to Mrs Start for 3 wonderful afternoons.
Year 4 had an inspiring and enriching day on their Faith Tour to a Church, Mosque and Gurdwara. They listened attentively to all the Faith leaders, asking insightful questions and impressed all the adults and leaders with their knowledge. Key facts in RE has been a focus this term and the children demonstrated their sticky learning brilliantly! In the church, children explored artefacts over thousands of years old. In the mosque, children listened to an example of the daily prayer call. In the Gurdwara, children ate their lunches in the Langar kitchen and watched the Chaur (brush) being waved over the holy book. Some comments were:
Gurdwara leader - "You could be leading this session with all your knowledge."
Christian leader - "Your questions and observation skills are very detailed!"
The year 4 staff commented on the polite manner and behaviours of the children, including their respect for the different faiths. Well done year 4
Almond Hill, along with many othe schools, held a fundraising day on Monday 25th September to raise money for a fantastic charity. As most of you will know, The Abilities in Me Foundation writes children’s stories based on real children with a range of conditions. Money raised goes into: creating more books to help raise awareness, supporting school SEND projects and running family support events which they are looking to expand across the UK. If you would like to find out more, please go to: www.theabiltiesinme.com. All teachers read at least one book from the range to children during the day. Children were invited to wear an item of brightly coloured clothing to school to highlight that although we may have some differences we are mostly the same. Parents of children in Years 4, 5 and 6 will remember that the author of this book series visited the school (free of charge) last year and donated her entire series to our school library. Children were truly inspired by her visit and her books so this is a lovely way to support the charity.
Gemma Kier, author and founder of The Abilities In Me Foundation has kindly donated her entire book series to our school library. We are really proud to add these books to our library and look forward to sharing them with the children. Gemma will also be visiting our school in July to host an assembly for all year groups. June 2023
Abilities in Me Assembly
Gemma and Max from the Abilities in Me Foundation visited us on Tuesday to host assemblies for both the lower and upper school. I am incredibly proud to tell parents how impressed they were with our school, our ethos and our children. The children really engaged in the assemblies answering questions and showing respect and understanding to those within the ‘Abilities community’. We were very lucky that Gemma donated her entire book series to our school library but if you or your child are interested in purchasing any of Gemma’s books for home, they are available to purchase through Amazon. July 2023
Almond Hill had the incredible Sean Rose visit year 5 and 6 for the morning recently. The children challenged themselves to take part in some exercise challenges and listened to a very inspirational and motivational assembly from Sean. He had some very important messages for the children about not giving up, persevering through difficult times and dreaming big. Here are what the children had to say:
'I couldn't believe the amazing things he's done. He's so brave!'
'I definitely want to do some of the cool things he's done when I'm older!'
'I liked how much he just kept on going and he didn't stop.'
On Monday, the school community went purple to raise awareness for epilepsy. It was fantastic to see so many people participate and I was very proud of how well the children engaged in my assembly on Monday. A big thank you to one of our parents who organised some bands to sell – I am very grateful and we raised £100! March 2023
Last week we celebrated 'Inclusivity Week'. We discussed what being inclusive meant to us and about the meaning of the word diversity. We celebrated what makes us different and unique and how this enriches our lives. We thought about why sometimes people are not inclusive and how this makes people feel. We watched videos to help us understand which situations are not acceptable and we learnt about the definition of a hate crime. Please ask us all about how we can be more inclusive because we have lots of great ideas!
4L loved the video and diversity tasks. Here's our jigsaw all about us - differences and all. ‘I like talking about our differences this week in Inclusivity week. Some people might think being different is bad but it's not! We like to celebrate our differences at Almond Hill’.
On Wednesday 8th June, the children at Almond Hill took part in a history day titled ‘Why are only some voices heard?’ which focused on how marginalised groups have faced inequality in the past and continue to do so now in the present. The children learnt about The British Empire, The Slave Trade and The Suffragettes and how these events impacted people’s lives in positive and negative ways. Some shocking facts were learnt throughout the day and the children engaged really well, creating some fantastic pieces of creative work, some of which can be seen here.
