Equality
Statement and Objectives

Version: September 2025     Review Date: September 2026

Our Commitment to Equality

At Co-op Academy Swinton, we are proud to welcome and uphold our duties under the Equality Act 2010. As a community, we believe that everyone should feel safe, respected, and included, and that equality should be at the heart of everything we do.

•        Eliminating discrimination, harassment and victimisation

•        Advancing equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not

•        Fostering good relations between all members of our school and wider community

These duties apply to all areas of school life including teaching and learning, student support, staff development, recruitment, and community engagement.

Introduction

At Co-op Academy Swinton we value diversity and believe that equality should permeate all aspects of academy life and is the responsibility of every member of the academy and wider community. Every member of the academy should feel safe, secure, valued and of equal worth. We will create an inclusive environment where everyone can contribute their best work and develop to their full potential. We will celebrate the fact that everyone is different, yet valued and make sure that everyone is treated with dignity and respect.

You can read more about this below, including the actions we have already taken to advance equality, diversity and inclusion in our academy and our community and to comply with our equality duty. We’ve also set out our equality objectives, which are the things we are going to be focusing on this year.

Equality Statement

Equality of opportunity is fundamental to good practice in education, in which fairness of opportunity for all is a basic right. At the academy we work together to eliminate all forms of discrimination, harassment and victimisation. Progress towards meeting our equalities objectives is reviewed regularly by the senior leadership team and governing body.

Co-op Academy Swinton is committed to being inclusive as we see our increasingly diverse population of both pupils and staff as one of the School’s greatest strengths. We are proud of our academy community, in which all members have a right to be treated and valued equally regardless of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, size, religion or the challenges of disability or disadvantage. Our equality work is based on six core principles

• All members of our community are of equal value. Whether or not they are disabled, whatever their ethnicity, culture, national origin or national status, whatever their gender and gender identity, whatever their religious or non-religious affiliation or faith background and whatever their sexual orientation
• We recognise, respect and value difference. We take account of this and strive to remove barriers and disadvantages which people may face, in relation to disability, ethnicity, gender, religion, belief or faith and sexual orientation. We believe that diversity is a strength, which should be respected, embraced and celebrated by all those who learn, teach and visit here.
• We foster a shared sense of cohesion and belonging. We want all members of our school community to feel a sense of belonging within the school and wider community and to feel that they are respected and able to participate fully in school life.
• We apply fair and inclusive practices for staff.  We ensure that policies and procedures benefit all employees and potential employees in all aspects of their work, including in recruitment and promotion, and in continuing professional development.
• We have high expectations for every student. We expect that all students can make good progress and that all members of the community can achieve their highest potential.
• We work to raise standards for all students, with a distinct focus on the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. We believe that improving the quality of education for the most vulnerable groups of students raises standards across the whole school.

Actions taken 2024-25

During the last year we have taken the following actions to advance equality, diversity and inclusion, and to comply with our equality duty:

For students

• Zero tolerance approach to bullying  
• Participation in national and international awareness days
• Celebrated cultural and religious events such as Eid and Christmas
• Consideration given to race and gender in the production of promotional and educational
• materials in school
• Promoted diverse voices and representation in the curriculum and school resources
• Created an Equality and Diversity Student Group
• Free revision guides issued to PP pupils
• Religious observance authorised
• Equality and diversity student group set up to discuss matters within the academy
• Form time used to deliver lessons on religious and cultural events during the year e.g. Eid, Easter etc.
• Multi faith room made available at lunchtime

For colleagues

• Provide Occupational Health referrals for colleagues struggling with health issues (both physical and mental)
• Provide ergonomic assessments / equipment for colleagues who struggle with mobility, so they can access the workplace
• Trained staff on racial and gender equality  
• Offered bereavement and pastoral support from senior leaders

For our community

• All newsletter and letters are pitched at appropriate level, so they are accessible to as many as possible
• Parent and staff association supports opportunities for any parent to engage with the academy
• Ensure any reasonable adjustments in line with The Equality Act are in place to enable candidates to access our recruitment procedure
• Blind shortlisting for interviews
• Services for mental health, domestic violence, housing etc are signposted on social media

Equality Objectives 2025 - 2027

Objective 1: Poverty Proofing the Academy        

We are committed to ensuring that disadvantaged and SEND students can succeed.

• Narrow the achievement gap between PP and non-PP students in all subjects and ensure that barriers to achievement are tackled
• Analyse achievement data by all key student groupings in order to identify and address any issues of under-achievement at student group level
• Track destination data to ensure all students are equally successful in accessing further education / apprentice / training or employment
• Work with students to eliminate daily learning barriers
• Understand, embed and evaluate student passports for SEND students

Objective 2: Embedding Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Teaching

We aim to make equality and diversity a core part of our curriculum and teaching practices. We will work towards a curriculum and teaching and learning practice which:

• Uses materials that reflect a range of cultural backgrounds, without stereotyping
• Promotes attitudes, values and skills that challenge discriminatory behaviour;  
• Provides opportunities for pupils to appreciate their own culture, religion and beliefs and celebrate the diversity of other cultures;  
• Covers issues of equality, diversity, religion, human rights and inclusion;  
• Provides educational visits and extra‐curricular activities that involve all pupil groupings;  
• Takes account of the different learning needs of different groups of pupils, using an appropriate range of teaching strategies to enable all pupils to progress
• Has careers as an embedded thread throughout learning to inspire all students to be ambitious

Monitoring Our Progress

The leadership team and governing body regularly review progress against our equality objectives. We are committed to listening to students, parents, carers, staff, and community voices as we continue to improve.

This Equality Statement and our objectives will be reviewed every two years and published on our school website.