All different, all equal
At Cowes Enterprise College we are committed to leaving no one behind and offer different support to different students to enable them all to make the same progress.
We welcome the positive difference diversity brings to our experiences and effectiveness. Cowes Enterprise College is for everyone and includes everyone whatever their background.
We challenge ourselves to do all we can to ensure diversity and inclusion within the academy. The more diverse we are, the better able we are to respond, reflect and represent today’s UK through the education we deliver.
If we get this right, it will be evident in how we work across all our stakeholders: our pupils, people and partners.
Equality Information and Objectives 2021-2025
Equality Information updated March 2024:
Cowes Enterprise College Strategy 2023 – 2027
Our three year strategy aims to ensure equality for all so that students reach their full potential and make good progress. Our equality objectives lie at the heart of our strategy KPIs. We build our commitment on the shoulders of our 125 staff. The dedication and moral purpose of our colleagues is not in question. Our strategy, contributed to by staff, students and governors, is about harnessing that broad passion and making it razor sharp so that we can achieve equality for all.
Why do we wear the rainbow lanyard?
In 1978, artist and designer Gilbert Baker was commissioned by San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk — one of the first openly gay elected officials in the US — to make a flag for the city’s upcoming pride celebrations. Baker, a prominent gay rights activist, drew inspiration from the rainbow to reflect the many groups within the gay community.
Equality within the academy
We welcome our public sector duty under the Equality Act 2010 to publish equality objectives and information. The aim for this is to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010 and to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not. In all our activities we act in accordance with the equality act and our equality policy which can be found on our website www.cowesec.org in the ‘policies’ section.
Our three year strategy aims to ensure equality for all so that students reach their full potential and make good progress. Our equality objectives lie at the heart of our strategy KPIs. We build our commitment on the shoulders of our 125 staff. The dedication and moral purpose of our colleagues is not in question. Our strategy, contributed to by staff, students and governors, is about harnessing that broad passion and making it razor sharp so that we can achieve equality for all.
Our strategy is our promise that we will pull together to use our combined expertise and resources to solve problems that haven’t been solved before. We will take hard decisions and we will not accept the status quo.
We want a level playing field for our pupils, but it is not level yet. We want all our pupils to achieve, but this won’t happen unless we recognise that underachievement does not happen randomly.
Our teachers and departments that do best for all pupils regardless of background do not achieve this by chance. They have developed support that takes away some of the barriers that keep children from meeting their potential.
To support our equality objectives, we have developed a rigorous approach to research driven professional development. This brings together the lessons from international evidence about what works. Our priority areas for action reflect what is in this causal analysis about how disadvantage in communities can result in lower achievement for individual pupils. This does not mean focusing on some pupils at the expense of others. It does mean being deliberate about understanding the structural reasons that can result in background having an impact on attainment.
Excellent Education
One of our core purposes is to provide an excellent education. We know that the most important thing is getting the basics right.
Every child has the right to acquire knowledge and skill in every subject before they leave education. The actions within this priority area are about making sure all pupils receive their full entitlement. We want to create greater consistency and alignment across the academy so that every classroom can share in our collective knowledge of what makes for the best curriculum and teaching.
Most Effective Support
Cowes Enterprise College’s staff have a strong sense of moral purpose and have chosen to work to make a difference to our community. We need to ensure that our pupils all receive the support they require to excel
Exceptional Personal Development
One of the important factors in our theory of change is the positive difference that exceptional personal development makes. We aim to level the playing field by building cultural capital and character through high quality enrichment opportunities and the explicit teaching of personal development through the curriculum
A child that learns beyond the curriculum can accumulate 40% more learning time in a single year than a peer whose only learning is through the timetable. Our aim is to make the commitment more sharply focused on the pupils who need it most by tracking attendance at enrichment opportunities and positively targeting students we want to attend opportunities beyond the school day
We will also deliver a universal curriculum offer called Everyone Matters (E1M) which will see our pupils involved in social action and student leadership and in receipt of a curriculum which asks pupils:
Well Organised and Well Run Academy
Our core purposes depend on having a strong organisation to support how we deliver our educational aims and to achieve this we need the right people in our academy. As an academy, our ways of working have not always kept pace with our evolution. If we are to become a top-performing academy we will need the people, technology, estate and information that are among the best in education
There are some staff groups that face particular recruitment challenges. Nationally, fewer teachers are being recruited and there are increasing numbers leaving the profession. Research tells us that an important factor in excellent education is that educationalists can focus on the business of curriculum, assessment, teaching and pedagogy. In order for this to be consistently the case, we will need to invest in those people, systems and processes which support our educationalists and ensure that our staff leaders enable staff from across the academy to keep motivated and committed even when under pressure