Equality and Diversity at St Mary's!

Our Equality and Rights Advocates (EARA)

A group of students from year 6 recently attended the Isle of Wight meeting of the Equality and Rights Advocates (EARA) group. EARA was created by a school on the mainland to “Challenge the way both students and teachers think and view our world and our fellow inhabitants and aspire to reduce the discrimination that students of different groups face at school, whether it be down to their race, sexuality, appearance or lifestyle”.

Our EARA group addresses many of the nine characteristics protected under the Equalities Act of 2010. They consider how prejudicial attitudes and behaviours towards those who share those characteristics impact on their school community. The group decides which aspects to focus on and discuss ways in which to advocate within their school.

The EARA Group’s aims are to:
Promote the Equality Act
Enhance pupil voice
Challenge discrimination and prejudice
Advocate for the rights of the child (UNCRC)
Encourage positive attitudes towards difference
Develop pupil confidence and life skills
Support vulnerable students
Increase participation and engagement

Our ambassadors are fantastic ambassadors for the school. They found the meeting very insightful and they told us that “The EARA group is a group that stands for children’s and young people’s rights, and for a safe environment in school, free of discrimination”. 

We are currently working towards achieving the UN Rights Respecting Schools solver award, in recognition of our work to promote and raise awareness of children's rights. Our EARA group have led an assembly for the whole school on this as well as develop with our teachers linking these rights to our curriculum learning. We have started this in our PSHE lessons and hold discussions in other subjects too, such as in History. Ask year 6 all bout the Atlantic slave trade! 

Weekly debates are also held in each class, where the EARA group decide on the question for the week that all children should debate and agree on an answer. This also encourages the promotion of the British Values, such as democracy. 

We believe that difference should be celebrated and we hold many celebrations and special events to promote the many cultures found here at St Marys. Our language and culture day and our World Street Food Market event is particularly popular, where families from different cultures prepare and share their traditional dishes with the rest of the community.