We take the principles of equality seriously at Borden Grammar School, being integral to our approach in all areas.

We have 3 equality objectives which are,

1. To continue to provide a supportive and inclusive community where all students and staff respect and celebrate their differences. This includes taking opportunities to educate, to celebrate differences, to encourage healthy masculinity and to eliminate homophobic, racist, sexist and other discriminatory language and behaviours in school.
2. To make progress in diminishing the differences for all groups of students in terms of achievement, sanctions, rewards and aspirations. Whilst true for all groups, this is particularly a priority at Borden for disadvantaged and SEN students and closely links the schools approach through an inclusion framework and panel, where all students are proactively provided with the support necessary for their need.
3. To further develop opportunities for all students beyond Borden to broaden horizons and develop cultural capital. This includes careers, events, trips, visits, fixtures, work experience and opportunities for student leadership.

In practice, addressing our core concerns for equality revolve around those with protected characteristics which takes place through,

1. Actively enabling reporting of concerns i.e. surveys, student voice activities and the facility to confidentially email
2. We have a clear policy on managing protected characteristic behaviour incidents which is shared with staff & students regularly 
3. Encouraging inclusive behaviour through rewarding values of kindness and respect and celebrating diversity i.e. BHM, Pride, International women’s day
4. Personal development education - both in lessons, tutor time and assemblies
5. Bespoke educational conversations in the first instance to allow reflection and discussion, with bespoke interventions about protected characteristics & empathy when students have repeated incidents. 
6. Sanctioning where necessary (internally or externally depending on seriousness)
7. Monitoring the effectiveness of 1-5 and acting proactively where necessary. This may include regular data collection, reporting, student voice - but also sometimes bespoke projects which focus on particular issues, i.e. the VAWG project or the EDI research project
8. Work with external agencies to be proactive in preventing issues for protected characteristics i.e. r UAB+ & anti-bullying policy e.g. things that make students more likely to be bullied 

More generally, we make sure that all students have access to appropriate support, with those needing more gaining increasing levels of support. For this reason we use the ‘inclusion framework’ below as a guide for the tiered levels of support we offer. We also actively identify those needing support and meet regularly to proactively discuss and assign support to those in need.

This approach has shown significant successes in 2025-26 with,

• A narrowed achievement gap between students with pupil premium and those without (and pupil premium students making significantly more progress than the national average)
• The attendance for all vulnerable groups being significantly better than the national picture (although we are still doing all we can to narrow the gaps that exist)
• A suspension rate significantly below the national average 
• The number of incidents for poor behaviours regarding protected characteristics has shown a marked decline

Our Equality Objectives & Policy can be found on the Policies page, under Information.