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

Meet the pupils in our Y5/6 Equality Group – they have been supporting and helping us to achieve the Equality mark at Baxenden. Please scroll to the bottom of the page to find out about the Equality Mark!

Autumn 2023

• Elimination of Racism – 19/10/23
  For our cultural diversity week, the Equality Group decided to make and present a worship about what racism is. The video is not very loud,…
• Disability Worship – 10/10/23
  Inspired by Harry’s worship about his cerebral palsy, the Equality Group wrote, made and led a whole school worship, to raise awareness of what different…
• Cerebral Palsy Day – 06/10/23
  Harry wanted to talk to the school to raise awareness of what cerebral palsy is, and how it does not hold him back. Harry and…

June 2023 is Pride Month!

We will be showing this PowerPoint in our worship and watching the Newsround video to celebrate Pride Month in June:

WE ARE PROUD!

We have been taking part in a competition called, ‘We Are Proud’ – look at our fantastic entries! We have sent them off to the Lancashire Equality Team be judged and guess what? WE WON! Seb sent us a lovely letter and then talked to us about what we had done, after presenting us with our new books.

Coronation Competition – British Values

The school Parliament ran a coronation art competition and we in the Equality Group wanted to use the opportunity to promote British Values. The competition was to design a piece of artwork in any media to represent the coronation – these would be displayed in our local Haworth Art Gallery. There were 3 winners chosen by the local councellor – KS1, lower KS2 (Y3/4) and upper KS2 (Y5/6).

No Outsiders

We attended parents evening, to promote our Equality Group and books from the No Outsiders scheme.

At Baxenden, the aim of the Equality Group is to teach our friends to recognise and accept difference. We have a duty to prepare them for modern life in Britain. In school and their future workplace they will be working alongside peers and colleagues of different race, religion, gender, age, disability and sexual orientation. It is paramount that future generations are able to accept differences, accept the views of others and treat each other with respect, even if they disagree. We hope our school family will express their views with kindness and consideration for the feelings of others. Our key message is that we are all equal and we all belong, we are all insiders, there are no outsiders in our school. In order to promote this ethos at Baxenden, we have chosen to use a resource that embeds equality, called ‘No Outsiders.’

The Lancashire Equality Mark Badges

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!