Diversity
At Fairfield Park Lower School we are committed to creating a community in which both children and adults can express their beliefs, preferences and values in a safe and non-judgemental environment. With ‘Diversity’ as one of our curriculum golden threads, we will ensure that our children are taught to embrace similarities and differences whilst treating others with respect, equality and kindness. Through our exciting curriculum, inspiring project weeks and passion for continuous development, our children will learn to accept diversity as the key to a beautiful, diverse world.
“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” - Dr Seuss
“The beauty of the world lies in the diversity of its people.” –unknown
Intent
At Fairfield Park Lower School, we will ensure in all our work and through all aspects of the school community and its life, everyone will be treated equally. At Fairfield we do not discriminate against: age, disability, gender, gender identity, race, religion or belief and sexual orientation. We embrace our differences and similarities and in doing so we welcome a well diverse curriculum and this allows the children at Fairfield to have a more open and respectful look at the world.
Our focus on British Values helps us, as a school, to embed diversity throughout the curriculum. In doing this we hope to support our children to be accepting members of society, as well as being respectful and kind.
At Fairfield Park each curriculum subject or area is to be planned to maximise opportunities to represent diversity, promote moral, social and cultural development and foster good relations.
We challenge staff and pupils on language used to ensure we have a culture that reflects diversity as a core value.
Implementation
Fairfield Park prides itself on the pastoral support that is available to all families. With a pastoral team and as early adopters to the new RHE curriculum we are able, as teachers, to offer well rounded support to all children/families. We address challenging conversations immediately, support families and offer advice, where needed, for parents/carers to feel comfortable about talking all aspects of diversity too. Children are taught proactively about our many differences – having them safely pointed out to prevent difference being construed as negative.
This enables us as a school community to confidently allow children to express their views in a respectful and understanding way, and for teachers to support children with their understanding if necessary.
Some key aspects of our diverse curriculum are:
- Diversity is one of our curriculum golden threads at Fairfield Park Lower School. We have established a ‘diversity’ team from within our teaching staff-Headteacher as lead
- Diversity is mapped through our yearly curriculum topics for all age groups and is the golden thread underwritten (see Curriculum Map Journey document)
- The diversity driver has a dedicated project week annually where the whole school celebrates this theme together and adopts different learning styles such as vertical grouping
- Early RHE adopters
- Pastoral Support Team
- A library with a good selection of diverse books, covering culture, gender, families, faiths and other aspects of identify. (ongoing)
- Arts Week- with a focus on diverse artists and themes e.g. Djembe and Samba drumming
- Equality- sporting opportunities for both girls and boys in all competitions and lessons e.g. boys encouraged to take part in dance or netball which historically are female leading sports.
- Develop our understanding Black History within school - making it part of our regular curriculum, not just during Black History Month
- Sign language club with aspects naturally taught from EYFS
Impact
The children at Fairfield Park become respectful and accepting members of society and this becomes a natural process not forced. Children are able to discuss their views and are encouraged to respect others' viewpoints.
From EYFS children are naturally tolerant. They become accustomed to The British Values to support them to be welcoming of others around them.
Our values help children to learn about respect, responsibility, fairness, independence etc…from the start of their schooling at Fairfield Park. These values become a natural part of attitudes, behaviour and life.
Having a strong pastoral support team enables teachers the confidence to gain support if a situation in their class arises and it is handled professionally and with ease. Teachers also had Rainbow for all training to support their own understanding and learning of diversity.
Early intervention will support and avoid stereotypical views.
Learning Snapshot
Diversity Newsletter
Curriculum Working Group
This is an example of a curriculum working group that we hold at Fairfield Park. This short video shows you a flavour of the resources that we shared with parents and carers at the Diversity Working Group. Parent voice was gathered to help us inform our curriculum plans.
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