Eliminating discrimination, harassment and victimisation: guidance for schools

Good practice example: planning school trips

A primary school is planning a trip to a local history museum. Before confirming the trip, it checks the accessibility of the venue. One of its pupils is deaf and the museum does not have a hearing loop. This would mean the pupil is unable to participate fully in the trip.

The school decides to change the trip to attend a museum that has a hearing loop. Although it will take longer to travel to the other museum, the school decides that this is a reasonable adjustment to make because the original plan would put their disabled pupil at a substantial disadvantage.

The school has eliminated potential discrimination and balanced the interests of its pupils for the best educational outcomes. It also met the second aim of the general equality duty (to advance equality of opportunity) by responding to the needs of its deaf pupil.

Good practice example: exclusion policies

A pupil with a learning disability has been excluded for repeatedly getting up from his seat during lessons and disrupting other pupils. It is the school’s policy that repeated disruptive behaviour is punished by exclusion.

The school has a duty to consciously consider (have due regard to) the need to remove or minimise disadvantages suffered by disabled pupils. It decides to consider making reasonable adjustments to its policy, such as: 

• working with the pupil to find a way to help him remain in his seat during lessons, which would minimise disruption to the class
• developing strategies to be added to the pupil’s education health and care plan 

The school also decides to:

• inform relevant staff about the pupil's needs and the reasonable adjustments they need to make to avoid discriminating against him
• record the pupil's requirements on classroom management systems.

Good practice example: using data on exclusions

To meet the PSED, a school reviews its information (data) on exclusions. It finds that a disproportionate number of pupils who have been temporarily or permanently excluded are boys of mixed White and Black Caribbean ethnicity.

The school also looks at local and national data which supports its own evidence. It has identified possible discrimination. The school decides to re-write its exclusion policy to include clear thresholds on exclusion that are applied consistently for all pupils.

The school runs some focus groups with teachers, pupils and their parents or carers from mixed White and Black Caribbean backgrounds. This helps to identify other things the school can do to reduce the high number of exclusions among these groups.

After the focus groups the school organises a range of activities and events, including:

• parent and pupil workshops
• visits from role models from a range of backgrounds
• assigning mentors and teaching classes to promote emotional literacy
• teaching skills on assertiveness, socialisation and behaviour management.

Over time there is a significant decline in exclusions of boys of mixed White and Black Caribbean ethnicity.

Good practice example: offering courses to excluded pupils

A local authority offers vocational but not academic courses to excluded pupils through its pupil referral unit. It is aware from national statistics that a high proportion of Gypsy and Roma pupils are excluded from school. It recognises the potential for indirect discrimination if academic courses are not offered at the pupil referral units.

As a result, the pupil referral unit starts offering academic options to all pupils referred there. The local authority includes information on this change of policy as part of the data it publishes to demonstrate how it has complied with the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED).