Community Cohesion in Schools
For schools, the term ‘community’ has a number of dimensions including:
- School community – the children and young people it serves, their parents, carers and families, the school’s staff and governing body, and community users of the school’s facilities and services;
- Community within which the school is located – the school in its geographical community and the people who live or work in that area. This applies not just to the immediate neighbourhood but also to the city or local authority area within which a school is located;
- UK community - all schools are by definition part of this community; and
- Global community – formed by EU and international links.
Broadly, schools’ contribution to community cohesion can be grouped under the three following headings:
- Teaching, learning and curriculum – helping children and young people to learn to understand others, to value diversity whilst also promoting shared values, to promote awareness of human rights and to apply and defend them, and to develop the skills of participation and responsible action – for example through the new ‘Identity and Diversity: living together in the UK’ strand within citizenship education.
- Equity and excellence – to ensure equal opportunities for all to succeed at the highest level possible, striving to remove barriers to access and participation in learning and wider activities and working to eliminate variations in outcomes for different groups.
- Engagement and extended services – to provide reasonable means for children, young people, their friends and families to interact with people from different backgrounds and build positive relations: including links with different schools and communities and the provision of extended service with opportunities for pupils, families and the wider community to take part in activities and receive services which build positive interaction and achievement for all groups.
Many schools have built very successful approaches to using the curriculum and teaching and learning techniques as a tool in building community cohesion, for instance, by providing:
- Opportunities across the curriculum to promote shared values and help pupils to value differences and to challenge prejudice, discrimination and stereotyping. There are opportunities across the curriculum and in the programmes of study for Religious Education (RE) and Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE).
- A programme of curriculum based activities whereby pupils’ understanding of community and diversity is enriched through fieldwork, visits, for example to places of worship, and meetings with members of different communities.
- Support for pupils for whom English is an additional language (EAL), and specific support for their teaching staff, to remove barriers to effective learning, enabling the pupils to be integrated and achieve the highest possible level in English.
- Assemblies which involve members of the local and wider community and promote the engagement of learners and shared understanding, as well as a school’s ethos and values.
Legislation relevant to community cohesion includes:
- Equality Act 2006; and
- Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000
- The Children Act 2004
