We felt it was necessary to instill in our pupils the need to respect difference and to facilitate an intercultural curriculum. This policy was necessary because our school had become more diverse.
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Our diversity lead to an increasing challenge with regard to the needs of our pupils, parents and teachers. We felt it was necessary to acknowledge the diversity of our school population, to instil in our pupils the need to respect difference and to facilitate an intercultural curriculum, for the following reasons:
- Schools are social and cultural organisations
- Everyday we experience issues of discrimination, both at school and in the world
- Pupil populations have changed greatly in the recent past with a number of children coming from the international community
- There is evidence of culture stereotyping before age 12, therefore there is a need to address intercultural issues with primary school children
- Children call each other names, sometimes gender or race related (prejudice)
- Children exclude others from play for arbitrary reasons (discrimination)
- Children protest when something is ‘not fair’ (human rights)
- Children fight (conflict and resolution)
- There are many ties with interculturalism and curricular areas.
Relationship to Characteristic Spirit of the School
The Model School promotes the principles of equality and respect in all aspects of education and supports the concept of equal access to full education for all our pupils. As we aim to aid the full and harmonious development of each child, we feel that adopting an intercultural approach to education can best facilitate this. This approach will span all curricular and organisational areas of school life. We deem this to be of value to all our children, parents, staff and community. This school is an equal opportunity employer. In accordance with our ethos, we will employ any suitably qualified member of the wider community regardless of age, marital status, race, gender, sexual orientation, disability or membership of Traveller community.