Equality Mark

Our school helps us to walk with Jesus, to be the best that we can be.  Through God’s love and guidance, we create an ethos of shared endeavour, friendship and co-operation to help us flourish academically, emotionally and spiritually.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13

At Baxenden St. John’s Primary, we believe that Equality should permeate all aspects of school life and is the responsibility of every member of the school family and wider community.

Equality is one of our school values and is a key principle for treating all people fairly and creating a society in which everyone has the opportunity to fulfil their potential – irrespective of their gender, ethnicity, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation, age or any other recognised area of discrimination.

As part of our work on developing Equality at Baxenden, we have been working towards achieving the Lancashire Equality Mark. The Lancashire Equality Mark is awarded to schools who have taken measures to embed Equality throughout their practice with the goal of enabling all pupils to thrive in a supportive learning community. It has been developed by a working group in Lancashire and provides a clear framework to guide schools through the process of auditing, developing and consolidating good practice in different areas of Equality. The Equality Mark is comprised of six individual Equality Badges:

 Race Equality Badge

 Gender and Gender Variance Equality Badge

 Disability Equality Badge

 Socio-economic Equality Badge

 Sexual Orientation Equality Badge

 Religion and Belief Equality Badge

When a school achieves all six badges they will be awarded the Equality Mark. Schools identify priorities each year that will make a difference in the area of equality in their school community and will support their wider development plans. This year we have achieved the Religion and Belief Equality Badge, the Socio-economic Equality Badge and the Gender Equality Badge. We are now working towards the Race, Sexual Orientation and Disability badges.

This is an exciting opportunity for us to develop practice in our school. The children are really enjoying the activities , discussions and new resources we have already invested in this year. Have a look at our action planning to see what we have been doing, and at our ‘Equality Group’ page to see what our children have been doing.