HOW YOU ARE INVOLVED
Our mission is:
Everyday, inspiring success through inclusive learning
We expect everyone to work to create an environment where each individual is a valued member of the learning community.
Everyone – staff, students, visitors, community groups we work with, parents, contractors who visit our sites, employers who provide valuable placements for our students – is involved with our mission to promote equality through:
Behaviour towards others
All members of the College are expected to ensure that their behaviour towards others does not discriminate, cause personal distress or impede personal development, mutual respect and learning.
There are documents which provide guidelines on behaviour, including the Staff Handbook and the Student Planner.
Reporting incidents
The College dos not tolerate bullying or harassment.
In 2007, students participated in rewriting our student anti bullying policy (link here).
If you at any time experience harassment or bullying, or feel uncomfortable or excluded in any way for whatever reason, we encourage you to talk, telephone or email Val Smith, Director of Support for Students or any member of staff who you feel comfortable talking to.
All members of the College are expected take responsibility for reporting any incidents of harassment or bullying that they see. You can talk in confidence to Val Smith, Director of Support for Students or any member of staff who you feel comfortable talking to. We ask you to do this because it can be difficult for victims to talk about their experiences.
Policies covering staff procedures are in the Staff Handbook, and staff should contact their line manager or the Vice Principal.
Providing Monitoring Information
We ask you to fill in monitoring information – about race, disability and gender – at various times in your contact with college. For example, when you enrol, apply for a job or respond to a customer survey.
We do this so that we can look at the profile of the college population. You can be assured that the information you give is held in confidence and is used to provide figures that help us find out if any inequalities exist and where equality is being promoted.
To do this, for example, for disability equality, we ask questions such as:
- How many students with disabilities are enrolled?
- Is this more or less than last year?
- Do students with disabilities achieve their qualification, attend and stay on course at least as well as students without disabilities?
- If the achievement level of people with disabilities is lower than for people without a disability, why is this? Do we need to provide better support or different types of courses?
- If the achievement level of people with disabilities is higher than for people without a disability, why is this? Can we help more people with disabilities or without disabilities achieve their goals?
- How does the College percentage of people with disabilities – staff and students- compare with the percentage of people with disabilities in the community?
- If it doesn’t, does this mean we need to provide different courses or change the ways we advertise courses and jobs and do we need to talk more to groups who represent people with disabilities?
The figures we collect will provide information so that we can monitor race and gender equality in the same way.
Being involved in the Equality and Diversity Working Group
We welcome your comments about you experiences at any time as well as through more formal consultancy groups and customer surveys.
You are also invited to join more formal forums. The Equality and Diversity Working Group is made up of staff and students from all parts of the college, and works to promote equality by sharing areas of good practice and disseminating to all areas of the college via course and staff teams, active involvement in the impact assessment process, planning and organising promotional activities, identifying training needs and contributing to action planning and review.
The group is open to all, and people may attend meeting whenever they are able.
Times and dates are published on the College’s interanet.
