Community cohesion
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Since September 2007 schools have been required to promote community cohesion, a legal duty introduced through the Education and Inspections Act 2006 and placed in an equalities context by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, National Curriculum 2000 and Every Child Matters 2004.
In practice this means that your school should have:
- a strategy for working towards a society in which
- there is a common vision and sense of belonging by all communities
- the diversity of people’s backgrounds and circumstances is appreciated and valued
- similar life opportunities are available to all
- strong and positive relationships exist and continue to be developed in the workplace, in schools and in the wider community.
- ensuring that the strategy embraces the 4 dimensions of community
1. the school community
2. the community in which the school is located
3. the UK community
4. the global community
- that you take action appropriate to the needs of your community by considering the characteristics of
- religion
- ethnicity
- socio-economics
- that those actions are informed by the over-arching themes of
- learning to understand others
- ensuring equal chances to fulfil learning potential
- interaction and participation
- and a means of knowing that your strategy is successful.
This section of our website provides guidance and resources in four key areas to support your community cohesion duty:
This page can be downloaded to print in pdf format here.
Northumberland schools who would like training and further support from the Cultural Diversity team are encouraged to contact us.
A reference area re community cohesion, including the original DCSF guidance, can be viewed here.
The Ofsted document Inspecting maintained schools' duty to promote community cohesion can be dlownloaded to print here.
