Community cohesion

All schools have a key part to play in promoting community cohesion through their approach to:

teaching and learning: teaching pupils to understand others, promoting discussion and debate about common values and diversity
equity and excellence: removing barriers to access and participation, offering equal opportunities to all their pupils to succeed at the highest level possible
engagement and ethos: providing opportunities for children, young people and their families to interact with others from different backgrounds.

Ways of promoting community cohesion

You need to consider some elements of community cohesion when developing your proposals for the new school. Bear in mind that your school's approach should reflect the nature of the school's population and the community it serves. Contributions will differ from school to school.

Your approach will probably include a range of activities:

within the school
with other schools
with parents and the local and wider community.

Your school can promote community cohesion in many ways. Some examples you might consider are:

Teaching and learning

teaching and curriculum provision that supports high standards of attainment, promotes common values, and builds pupils' understanding of the diversity that surrounds them
lessons across the curriculum that promote common values and help pupils to value differences and challenge prejudice and stereotyping
a programme of curriculum based activities whereby pupils' understanding of community and diversity is enriched through fieldwork, visits and meetings with members of different communities
support for pupils for whom English is an additional language to enable them to achieve at the highest possible level in English.

Equity and excellence

a focus on securing high standards of attainment for all pupils from all ethnic backgrounds and of different socio-economic status
effective approaches in place to deal with incidents of prejudice, bullying and harassment
admission arrangements that promote community cohesion and social equity.

Engagement and ethos

School to school:

partnership arrangements to share good practice and offer pupils the opportunity to meet and learn from other young people from different backgrounds.
Links built into existing schemes of work and grounded in the curriculum with pupils working together on a joint project or activity
shared use of facilities to provide a means for pupils to interact

School to parents and the community:

working with community representatives, for example through mentoring schemes or bringing community representatives into school to work with pupils
strong links and multi-agency working between the school and other local agencies, such as the youth support service, the police and social care and health professionals
engagement with parents through coffee mornings, curriculum evenings, parent and child courses
provision of extended services and community use of facilities for activities that take place out of school hours, including adult and family learning, information and communications technology, and English classes for speakers of other languages.