Commitment to Diversity

Woodlands School has pledged a commitment to Diversity and the nine protected characteristics, which are Disability, Race, Gender, Religion/Belief, Sexual Orientation, Gender reassignment, Marriage or civil partnerships and pregnancy or maternity. This commitment is embedded in our School Improvement Planning.

We started our journey in actively evaluating our practice in September 2020 by starting with the topic of Race, which was responsive to the political landscape around the Black Lives Matter movement. As 77% of our pupil population is from a BAME background, with our largest pupil group from Indian and African heritage backgrounds, we enrolled on the “Anti-Racist Schools Award” as part of Leeds Beckett University. We started with reviewing the cultural representation of our pupil population in our curriculum offer.

We had whole school training from Professional Paul Miller, a leading expert in Social Justice and Equality. We then embarked on a year-long review of our curriculum and Medium Term Planning, with coaching led by Audrey Pantelis, an ex-SEND Headteacher and notable BAME coach and leader.

We have celebrated a wide range of festivals and celebrations, in our school community, including Diwali, Eid, Christmas, Easter, Black History Month, National Windrush Day and Hanukkah. We have also celebrated women through World Book Day, disability through Autism week celebrations, and National Down Syndrome day.

Our commitment to Diversity and raising awareness of the vibrancy of our community is ongoing – we have much work to do!