Poynton High School seeks to promote equality and we celebrate the diversity within our community.  We welcome the public sector equality duty as set out in the Equality Act (2010).

What is the duty?

We must:

• Eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation
• Advance equality of opportunity between different groups
• Foster good relations between different groups

What are the protected characteristics?

The Equality Act 2010 was introduced to ensure protection on the grounds of specific characteristics (referred to as protected characteristics). For schools, this means that it is unlawful to discriminate against students or treat them less favourably because of their sex; race; disability; religion or belief; gender reassignment; sexual orientation; pregnancy or maternity. 

Marriage and civil partnerships and age are also 'protected characteristics'.  These apply to staff but not students in schools.

Our Equality Policy

Our Trust Equality Policy contains information about how our school complies with the Public Sector Equality Duty.  We also give guidance to staff and outside visitors on our approach to promoting equality.

 

Our Equality Objectives 

Our Equality Objectives reflect the school's priorities and draw upon available data and other evidence. Careful analysis of this is undertaken in order to ensure that we are working to achieve improved outcomes for different groups.

Our Equality Objectives, agreed by governors in April 2026, are below:

• To further develop our provision for students with SEND needs.  This work is being supported through external review and focuses on:
  • Increasing the band-width f teachers’ confidence and competence in relation to High Quality Adaptive Teaching.
  • Strengthening prvision which is additional to high quality teaching
  • Increasing student independence by exploring an increased use of technology.
• To further develop work to challenge misogyny and all forms of sexism, through the curriculum and wider strategies
• To use performance data to monitor student achievement and respond to variations between groups of learners, subjects, courses and key stages, trends over time and comparisons with other schools.  We will seek to further improve the progress made by the following groups; SEND students, students in receipt of Free School Meals and boys at GCSE.
• To foster good relations between different groups through the use of assemblies, Religious Studies and the PHSE programme.
• To challenge stereotypes that can deny opportunities to students through option and careers guidance and to track options choices that students make.  Work included the RADY programme and the Future Ready programme. 
• To further improve accessibility across the school for students, staff and visitors with disabilities, including access to specialist teaching areas.
• To further develop student and staff wellbeing and positive mental health
• To promote equality, diversity and inclusion actions across our staff body.  This will be achieved in several ways, including promoting flexible working, transparency in the gender pay gap and training for staff to eliminate any unconscious bias in recruitment.

Specific tasks relating to these objectives can be found within the School Development Plan.