We are investigating the accuracy of the Equality Policies on websites of schools that have been accredited as Stonewall School Champions. In our first analysis we found that over 50% of the policies of Stonewall accredited school’s in the North East region of England did NOT comply with the law.
Our first study looked at the 230 schools in the North West region listed as members of the Stonewall Champion scheme. We accessed each of the schools’ websites and clicked on their equality policies, not looking at any other policies. We checked every equality policy to assess whether they listed the protected characteristics (PC) correctly.
Findings | No of schools | % of schools |
Protected Characteristic Listed INcorrectly | 123 | 53 |
Protected Characteristic Listed Correctly | 58 | 25 |
Protected Characteristics Not Listed | 13 | 6 |
No Policy seen* | 30 | 13 |
School Closed | 6 | 3 |
Of the 181 schools that listed the protected characteristics, only 32% listed them correctly (58 out of 181)
Of the 123 schools with errors in their policy, the most common errors are that:
It is vital to ensure that a distinction is made between sex and gender as they are completely different concepts. “The UK government refers to sex as being biologically defined, and gender as a social construct that is an internal sense of self, whether an individual sees themselves as a man or a woman, or another gender identity” (source: Office for National Statistics).
Gender identity is not a protected characteristic and should not be used in equality policies. It is understandable that schools want to ensure that no child is discriminated against because of how they identify but it is inappropriate to falsify the Equality Act in order to achieve this. It is also important to note that the EHRC has clearly stated that that gender identity is not a term that is interchangeable with gender reassignment, so it is incorrect for schools to do this.
It is important to note that we can’t say for certain that the results of our study are a direct result of these schools’ links with Stonewall, as we haven’t interviewed the schools nor seen any training materials they’ve received. However, Stonewall is well known for pushing gender identity within its other schemes so it is highly likely that Stonewall’s involvement is responsible for these errors. We are able to say that there is clearly an problem if only 32% of Stonewall Champion schools in the North West list the protected characteristic of sex correctly. We believe that a spot check of other regions would likely result in similar findings.
Schools have a duty to safeguard students and to do so within the legal framework laid out in the Equality Act. Failure to list sex as a protected characteristic may result in schools failing to ensure that sex-based rights are upheld.
Breakdown of the errors of listed Protected Characteristics:
Key: * listed together as one characteristic / alternates between the two + more than one PC listed
Office for National Statistics: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/articles/whatisthedifferencebetweensexandgender/2019-02-21#:~:text=Sex%20and%20gender%20are%20different,woman%2C%20or%20another%20gender%20identity
https://womansplaceuk.org/2018/06/11/sex-is-a-protected-characteristic/
https://sex-matters.org/where-sex-matters/schools-and-safeguarding/