Category: Strategy

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.

Equality Statements

June 29, 2016 / / 0 Comments

I have been researching some Equality Statements the past days. I found out some good ones out there in google. Most of them are really simple but effective. Let’s check them out.

MAYFLOWER HIGH SCHOOL has a simple Equality statement it is stated down below.

MAYFLOWER HIGH SCHOOL

Equality Statement

We welcome our duties under the Equality Act 2010 to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations in relation to age (as appropriate), disability, ethnicity, gender, religion and sexual identity.

Guiding principles:

 

  • We value all learners equally
  • We recognise and respect difference
  • We foster positive attitudes and relationships, and a shared sense of cohesion and belonging
  • We observe good equalities practice in staff recruitment, retention and development
  • We aim to reduce and remove inequalities and barriers that already exist
  • We consult and involve widely
  • All of MHS policies are written with regard to and are compliant with the Equality Act 2010

The link for this equality statement http://www.mayflowerhigh.essex.sch.uk/page/?pid=377

Brandles School’s Equality Statement is simple and cool. Check it,

Equality Statement

Brandles embraces all the aims of The Equality Act 2010, which are:

  • To eliminate all discrimination
  • To enable everyone to have equal opportunities
  • To enable everyone to have equal life chances
  • To foster good relationships

Our objectives to achieve these aims are as follows:

We will :

  • Introduce a policy
  • Develop a resource base
  • Develop a personalised learning programme for all pupils
  • Ensure it is part of our induction process for staff and pupils

The Only thing that all of the equality statements have in common is The Equality Act 2010. The Equality Act 2010 is a document in depth -about equality right- designed by the government. In my opinion we shall have our equality statement based on The Equality Act 2010, because it covers everything.

Thanks
By Obai Ermak
London Nautical School Equalities Team

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Minutes: Thursday 10 March – Governors’ Visit

March 10, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Action Points from Last Week:

  1. Rotating Chair – Rostered – to be published by Chris
  2. Lambeth LGBTQ Lesson to go ahead as a pilot with feedback to come from Henry and others from the group before being rolled out for Year 9 overall.
  3. School Uniform – Ms Lucking will speak to some of the 6th form girls and invite them to this group.
  4. Formation of group for Womens’ issues – Ms Lucking, Conwright, Obai, Dewi, Dominic
  5. Equalities Policy – Chris will re-submit this to the PPP committee for ratification
  6. Sticker Campaign Date: Wednesday 16 March, Period 4, Ms Lucking’s room – Dewi, Henry, Dominic, Chris.
  7. Assemblies – Ms Wilberforce. Miss Critchley. Ms Lucking, Dominic and Michael

Equalities Objectives:

Chris Hall, Governor, explained the concerns the Governors had about the equalities objective – the idea of committing ourselves to everyone achieving the same outcomes was potentially unrealistic. Henry also reiterated Mr Taylor’s concern about how to identify and track the various groups.

  1. All school documents and curricular resources reflect the diversity of the wider school community.
    • We can be much more inclusive with resources and how we position them towards gender, religion, sexuality and ethnicity in language and representation. For example: We should not present Mr and Mrs as our default in letters, not simply choosing a male scientist when making a PowerPoint slide/handout.
  2. Regular audits of school behaviour incidents reflect a reduction in bullying and harassment of identified groups within the school and track trends in broader behaviour to ensure specific groups are not over-represented.
  3. Equality training is run annually for all staff and regular events are run on the school calendar that promote positive messages about all members of the diverse school community.

To be amended:

Progress for students who come from minority groups within the school (Multi-ethnic, LGBT, diverse religions, different genders) is monitored

Alternatives:

  1. Interview students who are under-achieving – there was some concern that students wouldn’t disclose information, or would feel shame about
  2. Speaking to parents – the concern here was that some students might not wish to disclose issues they’re having that may affect their learning
  3. The re-stating of the objective in terms of a broader intention would allow the leadership to build more specific goals to achieve them.

Proposed Wording:

Option 1: “The school will make progress towards ensuring that progress for students who come from minority groups within the school is not affected by their minority status” 

Option 2: “The school will ensure that students’ minority status doesn’t become a barrier to their academic progress” – carried unanimously.

 

 

 

Minutes 11/02/2016

February 11, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Apologies

Mr Waugh – At UCL giving a lecture

Barnaby- at Art coursework session

Ms Warsame- sick

Ms Lucking – another appointment`

(some apologies missing from minutes so I apologise)

Chair and Minutes – Ms Critchley

Agenda 

  • Report from Obai on JLT
  • Positive image for women
  • LGBTQ workshops on offer to us

JLT

Obai- snapchat problem videoing people to pass on to other people. Meeting with SLT about lunch cards being on show at all times to ID people and allow JLT members to write SIMS  comments.

Jamal- phone removal was well deserved. Boys were stupid and they lost a privilege.

Women and positive images

Jamal- needed clarification of last weeks agenda. Agreed the problem is how women are being treated differently. Positive imagery not enough. Sanctions required.

Miss Murphy- questions girls dress code and whether or not one exists. States she feels there needs to be one as boys see it as unfair which might promote resentment.

Henry- we never speak about the objectification of women. Informal assembly suggested about repercussions of engaging in sexually objectifying conversations. Male led preferably as boys will respond better to this. Objectification should be addressed. And harassment is to be defined.

Obai- positive image- imagine she is your mum. integrating the women into the community more.

Christian- proposing a change in uniform policy for girls. Thinks it’s right to enforce the one that exists in planners.

Jamal- worried we are enforcing the idea that they should dress better to receive respect. Male teachers can encourage it. Named male teachers who he states have encouraged it.

Henry- the male role models should stand up for women. agreed with Ms C’s link to He for She campaign.

Jack- larger than anything we have taken on before. Struggle to see moral side of things. Cultural shift required. Points out that women are not treated so well but are in society, a majority not a minority

Henry- not everyone is female. Everyone has a race or sexuality. It’s making things harder.

Dominic- Sexism is seen to be funny. “I banged your girl”

Ms Critchley- would like to invite boys to take part in an assembly on not seeing women as possessions rather contributors to society! generally thinks it might help if women were in front of kids at assemblies more.

Jamal- harassment of other girls. Heard some boys who talked about our Y10 BFI project say “What does she expect? She’s come into a boys school.” When girls claimed to have been harassed.

Jack- Points out that sexism affects all of us. Try to get a better connection will the school community by pointing out how they are at a disadvantage if the inequality persists.

Freddie- maybe we could do an assembly on objectification of men

Christian- if we flipped it- imagine it. If the boys were being treated badly.

Jack- too hard to make there be less of a difference between men and women with so many men in the school. Attack gender stereotypes.

Ms Schuil- thinks of American dress codes. Poor excuse to make girls dress better.

Jack- zero interaction with women is a problem

Freddy- “what have we gained with gender stereotypes?”

Henry- don’t be a girl. Bothers us.

LGBTQ Workshops on offer from Lambeth

Michael- doesn’t see many boys taking it on. (the offer of the support group for LGBTQ young people)

Henry- wants to see what they are proposing in more detail and would want them to work in collaboration with the group. Concerned that students often see external workshops as free day and hence don’t engage.

Jack- Would like to see where they are coming from and be allowed to read the email about the project’s goals. Concerned their message might marginalise people more.

Pips went!

 

Next week’s agenda

Deciding our role in how to promote positive image for women (had to cut conversation short)

 

 

Minutes 14 January 2016

January 14, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Incidents

  • Chris read a list of the racist/homophobic/
  • Henry said real progress will be seen when the more subtle incidents are recorded
  • Chris sees this as a small step, but only recording incidents is not going to effect change.
  • Alistair acknowledged that there is a need for conversations with the school leadership about how things like this will be responded to by the school.

Plan of Action

  • A shared activity as a group – Jack
  • Lesson Observations – Henry and Enrichment
  • Positive Messages about diversity
  • Destroy the cuss “Gay”
  • LBGT History Month
  • Transgender language.
  • World food day – Jack
  • More staff to be involved – Chris

Leadership Group

  • Chris is now on Leadership Group and will be pursuing in the first instance the schools’ goals.

Proposed Equalities Goals for Governors

October 1, 2015 / / 0 Comments
  1. All school documents and curricular resources reflect the diversity of the wider school community.
    • We can be much more inclusive with resources and how we position them towards gender, religion, sexuality and ethnicity in language and representation. For example: We should not present Mr and Mrs as our default in letters, not simply choosing a male scientist when making a PowerPoint slide/handout.
  2. Progress for students who come from minority groups within the school (Multi-ethnic, LGBT, diverse religions, different genders) is monitored to ensure parity with whole-cohort averages and national averages.
  3. Regular audits of school behaviour incidents reflect a reduction in bullying and harassment of identified groups within the school and track trends in broader behaviour to ensure specific groups are not over-represented.
  4. Equality training is run annually for all staff and regular events are run on the school calendar that promote positive messages about all members of the diverse school community.