Month: September 2016

Minutes 29th September 2016

September 29, 2016 / / 1 Comment

Agenda

  • Counter Culture Workshop
  • Hair issues
  • Actual Jobs
  • Halal Food
  • SIMS Categories
  • Incident Report
  • “This is England” campaign

Apologies

  • Mathew- Docks
  • Dewi- Nautical Things

Ms Lucking

  1. Tate Workshop: Exhibit of Guerrilla/Gorrilla Girls workshop and Complaints Department Workshop where we can make posters about things which affect us. Names to Ms Lucking by tomorrow please. Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday afternoon proposed. Freddy, Obai already signed up
  2. We can all read Henry’s Essay on his Student Journal. Action: we will all read it by next week. It has now been put on his student journal and Mr Waugh just uploaded to to the Equalities site too.
  3. Actual Jobs in the Equalities Group. We offered SIMS to Henry. Equalities group recruitment (Miss Schuil).

Mr North and Freddy- Curriculum

Workshops for the school- Possibly Kate

Ms Schuil, Obai- recruitment of staff and students

Promotion of equalities group ideas- Mel Lucking

Events- Kickstarted by Schuil.

Henry has concerns about assigning roles when group numbers are so low. The group agreed to put this on the agenda for two week’s time when we have more numbers.

Next Week’s Agenda

  • Halal Food
  • SIMS Categories
  • Incident Report
  • “This is England” campaign

 

Henry’s Position on Hairstyles

September 23, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Issues with the treatment of Max:

*No matter what the school’s new view on hair colour is, the school has not been consistent with their responses. Max dyed his hair blonde and has subsequently been sent to the referral unit until his hair grows out to his natural colour. There areis a substantial amount of boys that I know of (in the upper school alone) whothat have also dyed their hair different colours- mostly blonde, who have faced no consequences and are allowed to remain in lessons as normal. By taking Max out of lessons for this, – the school are failing their objective of creating the best possible education for each and every student. The job of a teacher isit to teach. It is not to worry about what the student that they’re teaching looks like. I think whoever has made the decision to remove Max from lessons has done a disservice to the school’s teachers., I am confident the teachers would be happy to teach Max with his hair in it’s current state.

*The school’s policy on hairstyles and haircuts is laughably flawed. Hairstyles/colours transcend school., Aa hairstyle or colour is not selected for school, it is is for the students’ own personal desires. Students are at school 35 hours a week. There are 168 hours a week. This means students spend less than a quarter of their time at school. Therefore it is outrageous that the school demands to control how the students look WHEN THEY AREN’T EVEN IN SCHOOL. Banning students’ legitimate methods of expressinggaining their individuality is just not progressive at all, it halts their growth as young men. By doing this you are compromising a school objective to develop the boys as people.

*How on earth does what colour hair a student has affect his/her or anyone else’s learning??? It simply does not. The only thing that affects learning in this place is taking said student out of lesson!

*If the school’s idea is that by being “stricter” on hairstyles the school are keeping up the nautical “ethos” then they should think again. The nautical ethos is to encourage young people to try out watersports, not trying to emulate exactly what the navy forces do. Anyway, the job of the young navy men these days is often patrolling the seas around a tropical island in the sun, hoping for the world to travel back in time to an era where the navy had any social or cultural relevance. The job is clearly less inviting these days as the numberamount of boys leaving LNS to join the navy has been significantlymajorly dwindling – to the point where having one boy join the navy from a year group is a raritycommodity. In the pre- Wworld Wwar Ttwo era the majority of boys graduated the school and left for the sea. So for the year 1915, the strict parameters of hair code mimicking the navy were highly suitable. They are not representative any more.

The school has taken backward steps since last year. I hope this is reversederadicated very soon.

Minutes 22 September 2016

September 22, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Agenda:

  • Actual Jobs
  • Hair issues
  • Halal Food
  • SIMS Categories
  • Incident Report
  • “This is England” campaign

Apologies:

Henry, Dewi, Matthew.

Minutes:

  • Actual Jobs – areas of responsibility (We agreed these and will assign people to them in the next meeting)
  1. SIMS Report – Henry
  2. Assemblies –
  3. Curriculum –
  4. Workshops –
  5. Promotions –
  6. Events –
  • Hair

Obai reported that the school seems to have inconsistencies in the way they address people’s hairstyles.

Henry has written a paper on this – we will deal with this next week.

  • Racist Incidents

Mr Harris joined the Equalities Group at this point. In a discussion about the resolution process he developed in accord with our recommendations (He explored the use of a student conference: both students were present of their own volition and time was taken to explore the incident. Eventually both acknowledged/accepted each other’s position and the perpetrator apologised for his actions, which was accepted by the victim).

We concentrated on what happens if a resolution is not reached. To which Mr Harris added the following observation:

A resource exists in the LSC to provide a programme about prejudice – we would like to understand this more and encourage this to be used.

A proposal for working together in the future was developed:

  1. Mr Harris will work with a Year 9 representative of the Equalities group to develop a formal policy for dealing with incidents of prejudice.
  2. The proposed student conference will happen after the school’s formal sanctions have been enacted – usually initially a period in referral. This will be a voluntary meeting, but will be a way for students to demonstrate they’re serious.
  3. Ms Phillips will be invited to show the Equalities group her LSC anti-prejudice progamme.
  4. Some discussion occurred about whether parents should be involved in this meeting. This matter remained unresolved.

Next Week:

  • Actual Jobs
  • Hair issues
  • Halal Food
  • SIMS Categories
  • Incident Report
  • “This is England” campaign

 

Minutes 15.09.16

September 15, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Apologies

Demi and Jamal are on Duke of Edinburgh

Agenda

Motion: Adding SEN Discrimination to the SIMS logs. Unanimously carried. Miss C and Lethaniel will do it this week. 

Review of Equalities incidents so far this year. Henry will present this in future with names removed. Mr Waugh summarised. 

Mr Harris’s response to Racists incidents. He tried to use our strategy of families meeting when racist incidents occurred. He used tutors instead of families because leadership prevented him bringing families in. Mr Waugh says the meeting was a success and results in apologies but it can be successful even if apologies aren’t made. All parties chose to attend. Genuine apologies made. We will ask that these incidents are based on how the students feel. Involve the school counsellor. If the resolution cannot be met then we could then start to impose sanctions. We will invite Mr Harris to talk about how it is going to be implemented. 

No Halal food in the canteen. Or food in the canteen is not labelled halal. Obai and Mr Waugh. 

Dyed hair? Henry will invite Max. 

Next week’s agenda

New focusses this year 

Giving people actual jobs

Dyed hair referral