Diversity and Inclusion

In July 2023 the Academy St James was recognised for its work on Diversity and Inclusion as has been awarded the Bronze Diversity Mark Award. You can find our report here:

Better Together!

At The Academy at St James, we are developing a curriculum and learning environment that promotes interest, excitement, motivation, achievement and success. Our school community is made of many different cultures and ethnicities which we celebrate and embrace. Our core values of community, peace, respect, forgiveness, courage and trust are embedded into our school and support our pupils to grow and flourish.

At the Academy St James all leaders have a strong vision and commitment to inclusion and diversity as you could see on your visit which are exemplified by through our values, policies, curriculum, and daily life.

Senior leaders have led the way to ensure that EDI is taught both explicitly and implicitly throughout the curriculum. For example, we use PSHE as a driver for this but we also enrich our reading curriculum with high quality books (see reading spines) and we also look at different narratives in History for example to ensure our pupils see a wide range of viewpoints. Whether this be a sequence of learning in PSHE, a curriculum driven pedagogical approach or one of many awareness days we seek to ensure that EDI is at the heart of approach and allows pupils to flourish each and every day.

How do we ensure this?

At the Academy St James we have school improvement logic models which are designed to deliver impact for all, focusing on vulnerable groups to ensure rapid progress and to close the gap effectively. The training and development of staff and pupils is planned into our yearly quality assurance calendar. Linked to this we also have individual plans of action for every subject which are written and evaluated by out subject leaders. OFSTED recognised leadership as outstanding in 2022.

The school’s development of the vision:

• Aspire to be the best I can be
• Believe in myself, each other and a better world
• Achieve individually and together as a community

This highlights our commitment to community and our is a place where everyone is nurtured and children and their families always come first.  As a school community we celebrate all of our many cultures, religions and beliefs regularly. We celebrated InterFaith Week in November, raised money for Epilepsy to support a family whose mum sadly passed away due to this and we also raise money for Forever Angels in Tanzania annually which is an organisation which supports orphaned children. Our school council have been working with Star Fish Asia and we have a link with a school called St James in India.

We work as part of the BDAT Trust and have collectively come together to work on ICARE- this set of values unites us and supports our common goal of inclusion for all.