Equality Duties and Objectives for Schools

Schools must publish details of how they comply with the public sector equality duty, updating this this every year. They must also publish their equality objectives, and update these at least every 4 years.

The Equality Act 2010: advice for schools provides guidance on how schools can show they have complied, as required by the Equality Act 2010 and the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 20

To comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), schools must publish at least one equality objective. This makes their priorities for equality available to the public.

The objectives should be:

• clearly defined
• specific and measurable
• agreed with the school's governing body or academy trust board
• reviewed and published at least every four years (this is a legal requirement).

The approach should be proportionate: larger schools are likely to have more objectives than smaller ones. We recommend that schools:

• publish more than one objective at least every four years
• include their objectives in their school's improvement and development plans.

As far as possible, the objectives should align with the most significant equality challenges facing the school.

Showing whether you have achieved your objective

Schools should be able to measure how successful they have been in achieving the objective. For example, if the objective was to improve low levels of attainment in mathematics for girls, or reduce the number of homophobic incidents, how will your school know it has succeeded?

We recommend asking pupils about their attitudes to, or experiences of, their school. This may reveal problems that lead to new policies. Following the creation of any new policies, schools can ask the questions again to see if pupils' attitudes or experiences have changed. This could help with increasing understanding between faith groups, for example.

The PSED will help to focus attention on performance gaps between groups of pupils, for example:

• girls and boys
• pupils from different ethnic groups
• disabled and non-disabled pupils

Further resources

• Publishing equality objectives: guidance for schools | EHRC
• The Department for Education's statutory guidance on Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education