The service is also committed to promoting equality of opportunity in relation to the protected characteristics as defined in the Equality Act 2010, as an employer, service provider and in the services we commission.
The Equality Act 2010 brings together a number of separate pieces of legislation into a single act. The majority of the Equality Act 2010 came into force on 1 October 2010, providing protection from discrimination on the basis of ‘protected characteristics’.
The Act protects pupils from discrimination and harassment based on ‘protected
Characteristics’.
The protected characteristics for the schools’ provisions are:
- Disability
- Gender reassignment
- Pregnancy and maternity
- Race
- Religion or belief
- Sex
- Sexual orientation
The Education Authority sets and publishes Equality Outcomes every four years to meet the requirements of the Equality Act. The Equality Outcomes apply to all schools and address all forms of discrimination. The report on progress made towards the Education Authority’s Outcomes can be found here.
The Council’s Education Equality Outcomes (21 -25) are:
Equality Outcome 1 - Increase access to information by ensuring communication barriers are removed for children, young people and families who are disabled.
Equality Outcome 2 - Increase the feeling of trust and belonging to schools and communities by reducing bullying of those with protected characteristics, race, disability, LGBT.
Equality Outcome 3 – Reduce number of exclusions for children and young people with disabilities.
Equality is promoted across the school curriculum and especially through citizenship and global awareness, one of the core components of Curriculum for Excellence.
Schools are responsible for implementing inclusive practices and agree areas for improvement within the school’s annual improvement plan. Parents, pupils and the wider community support the formulation of this plan.
The Council promotes the use of a form via the homepage of the council website for recording and reporting prejudice and discrimination incidents. A prejudice and discrimination incident is any alleged crime, offence or incident where the victim or any other person believes the events to be motivated by prejudice and/or discrimination. These reports are collated and analysed by Grampian Regional Equality Council. There is the option for the victim or witness to remain anonymous or to indicate that they would wish the incident referred to a third party, for example, the police or a case conference. Statistical reports on prejudice and discrimination incidents are reported quarterly to Aberdeen City Council to help identify trends and hotspots.