Equality Based

Equality Based

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Our school community is equality based and multicultural. We uphold, respect and accept equality of beliefs, whether religious or non-religious, and we celebrate diverse lifestyles held by children, parents, staff and members of the wider community.

In addition to the National Curriculum, our school follows an Ethical Core Curriculum, which focuses on the children’s moral and spiritual development. It has four main strands:

1. Moral and spiritual development,
2. Equality and justice issues,
3. Ethics and the environment,
4. Belief systems and religions.

It is important to understand that, by its very nature, an equality based education is not a substitute for religious education or catechism. The Board of Management facilitates any group of the school community who wishes to organise religious or ethical instruction outside the school programme.

Our equality based l instruction leads our children to:

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  • Understand the concept and importance of different beliefs and values, religious and non-religious.
  • Learn about the different customs, rituals and traditions of various cultures, communities and religions.
  • Feel free to express their own creed and celebrate their own festive days without feeling isolated and/or discriminated against

Positive illustrations of our equality based principle and Ethical Core Curriculum

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(a) Moral and spiritual development addresses issues related to values and behaviour.
  • Our school follows the “Walk Tall” programme, which encourages respect for oneself and others. We emphasise the fact that stealing, hurting someone physically and/or verbally, lying, and so on, are not acceptable. Discussions are held with children to encourage acceptance, tolerance and understanding of the customs and rituals observed by different religious and ethnic communities.
  • Each year, our school holds a “friendship week”, which ends with a little show where children sing songs about friendship and refer to personal experiences.
  • As part of our anti-bullying policy, we have a “telling policy”, encouraging children to report incidents and concerns. All are involved in promoting this policy, and children’s posters with “tell” written on them can be seen throughout the school.
(b) Equality and justice addresses issues related to discrimination and racism.
(c) Ethics and the environment addresses issues related to right and wrong, encouraging responsible choices.
(d) Beliefs systems and religions, fostering awareness and acceptance of various belief systems.
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