Equality

Our Equality Commitments

Our equality target for 2023/24    

‘To ensure teaching and opportunities for learning including curriculum, resource and environment reflect the diversity of 21st Century Britain and that our curriculum builds up cultural capital involving the wider community.'

Across our trust, the diversity of our staff, our children and our communities is respected, appreciated, valued and celebrated. Equality of opportunity is embedded in both trust and school policies and practices. We are determined to ensure that our staff, governors and directors are of diverse backgrounds, representing and reflecting our communities. Every child and every adult in PACE Academy Trust is equally important to us. We recognise that we are all different.

Our School

Beecholme Primary is a friendly, one-form entry school located in Mitcham.

We are an inclusive school with a diverse cohort of children and staff. Presently, 76% of our children on roll speak English as an additional language, and 34% of our children qualify for the pupil premium grant. Both of these figures are above the national average. 9% of our pupils receive support for special educational needs, including 3 children who have Education and Healthcare Plans (EHCPs). These figures are a little lower than average.

There are many ethnic groups at the school and speak more than 24 languages between us. Here at Beecholme we are passionate about equality and we celebrate the diversity of our school community through everything that we do.

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Our Wonderful Diversity

At Beecholme we have high aspirations for our children and believe every child should be a successful learner.  Our main aim is to focus on reducing barriers to progress and learning where they exist, so that all children in our school can develop and achieve in line with their potential.

A celebration of diversity is evident in our school environment and we encourage children to share, discuss and ask questions about cultural identity and our British Values

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Our Curriculum and Celebrations

We are developing our curriculum to ensure that it is diverse and inclusive, and all children see themselves reflected in the learning that they do.  In reading, we have a wide selection of diverse texts and authors, in Art we focus on artists with protected characteristics, in history we are looking at untold stories of people in the past and in music we are learning to play the djembe drums from Ghana.

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We follow an extensive calendar of celebrations each year, including World Afro day, International Days, Diwali and Navratri, Christmas, Carnival, Easter and Ramadan/Eid and Remembrance Day. The staff identify opportunities for visits and visitors to enhance the children’s learning and understanding of diversity in order to raise awareness of different cultures and religions. We especially welcome parents and members of the local community to share their knowledge and skills.

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Teachers also use resources that include diverse images to make sure that they include people from different backgrounds or with disabilities to show differences and to challenge stereotypes.

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Our Partnership with our Families

At Beecholme, we work closely with our parents and families to foster positive relationships. This begins with our Headteacher welcoming families at the gate through to offering appointments to speak to teachers one to one if there is a concern. We are extremely fortunate to have bi-lingual staff who can translate for families in Tamil, Urdu, Polish, Hindi and Spanish. Many of our parents will support new families especially if they hear their home language being spoken in the playground or outside the classroom. The school has offered ‘Parent Gym’ to support parents, as well as drop in sessions for parents who need support with our Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (ELSA). This all goes to building a conducive supportive environment for the children to learn, grow and respect others.

The school uses an on-line platform for learning at home. This is also a place where we can communicate with parents and celebrate the achievements of the children with for example, our ‘Best that you can Be’ certificates, with our ‘Say it Loud and Be Proud’ work and celebrate outside of school achievements.

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Our trust Equality Policy can be found here.