Under the Equality Act you are protected from discrimination:

• When you are in the workplace
• When you use public services like healthcare (for example, visiting your doctor or local hospital) or education (for example, at your school or college)
• When you use businesses and other organisations that provide services and goods (like shops, restaurants, and cinemas)
• When you use transport
• When you join a club or association (for example, your local sports club)
• When you have contact with public bodies like your local council or government departments

The nine Protected Characteristics are actively promoted at Deyes High School through:

• Our school ethos that ‘everybody flourishes to achieve their true potential’
• Our school core values ‘engage, enable, empower’
• School Improvement Plan
• Our school behaviour policy
• Conscious role modelling by all adults in the school community
• Active engagement and communication with parents and carers
• Assemblies
• Collective meetings
• British Values themes within the PEAK curriculum
• Discussion within curriculum subjects, taking a cross-curricular approach
• Promoting articulation by building appropriate language and a coherent vocabulary
• Personal, Social, Health and Economic education (PSHE) via fortnightly PEAK sessions
• Religious Education (RE) lessons
• Deep learning days and sessions led by external specialists on topics such as tackling stereotypes and mental health
• Sporting, Art and Performing Arts Events
• Pupil Voice
• Educational visits
• Real-life learning outside the classroom
• Guest speakers such as the School Nurse and Safer Schools Police Officer
• Developing links with communities such as food banks, retirement homes and local SEND schools
• Extra-curricular and enrichment activities andclubs
• Charity work and work within the local community

Embedding Protected Characteristics into the whole ethos of Deyes High School promotes:

• Self-esteem, self-knowledge and self-confidence
• Respect for democracy and support for participation in the democratic process
• Acceptance of responsibility for their own behaviour
• Respect for their own and other cultures
• Understanding of how they can contribute positively to school and home life and to the lives of those living and working in the locality and further afield
• An understanding of Equality, Human Rights and Protected Characteristics
• An understanding of how citizens can influence decision-making through the democratic process
• An appreciation that living under the rule of law protects individual citizens and is essential for their wellbeing and safety
• An understanding that the freedom to choose and hold other faiths and beliefs is protected in law
• An acceptance that other people having different faiths or beliefs to oneself (or having none) should be accepted and tolerated, and should not be the cause of prejudicial or discriminatory behaviour
• An understanding of the importance of identifying and combating discrimination