Introduction
Goddard Veterinary Nursing College (GNVC) is committed to providing equal opportunities to individuals within the college and the group overall. Opportunities and training to aid personal and professional development is offered without regard to any of the nine protected characteristics in the Equality Act 2010. These include age, disability, gender, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, and sexual orientation.
This policy relates to a number of GVNC policies, including the LGBTQ+ policy. It sets out in more detail GVNC’s approach to issues in line with the Equality Act 2010.
It covers all learners at GVNC and is the responsibility of all staff as well as learners to uphold the college policy on EDI and equal opportunities.
This policy refers to the following legislation:
- Equality Act 2010
We aim to:
- Ensure equal access to learning programmes and facilities offered
- Provide a positive learning environment free from discrimination, harassment, or victimisation
- Provide high quality education in a welcoming and supportive environment enabling everyone, regardless of age, religion or belief, sexual orientation, gender, learning difficulty or disability to study with us
- Promote awareness and support of neurodiverse conditions (such as dyslexia, ADHD, autism, and others) to ensure learners are empowered and supported throughout their learning journey
- To promote understanding of and support the needs of all learners and staff, including provision of reasonable adjustments to ensure fair access to services and opportunities
- To utilise awareness of the Equality Act and related issues through the provision of inclusive learning
- To monitor and challenge behaviour, such as discrimination, harassment and victimisation including verbal and non-verbal. This includes associative discrimination, where an individual directly discrimination against or harassed for association with another individual who has a protected characteristic.
We will achieve these aims by:
- Ensuring that all learners and staff are aware of the EDI policy and understand its purpose and aims
- Ensuring that GVNC and GVG policies and practices are inclusive and supportive of all regardless of characteristic and promote equal opportunities
- Nominating a member of staff as GVNC’s EDI Champion to monitor implementation of this policy and provide training, advice, and support to learners and staff
- Providing quarterly reporting by the EDI Champion to the Governance Board on progress, training, and other updates related to EDI initiatives
- Providing EDI awareness training to all staff
- Providing guidance to all staff and learners on the importance of inclusive language and respect for individual choices such as pronoun or titles
- Ensuring learners are given equal assessment opportunities and be taught at a level which is appropriate to them
- Encouraging learner involvement in the continuous development of EDI and practices through surveys, delivery of awareness training and learner voice representatives
- Embedding EDI topics that naturally occur within the VNA and VN Diploma syllabus where applicable, including lesson plans and learning support materials
- Ensuring inclusive learning practices acknowledge preferred learning styles and include a variety of assessment strategies such as Cognassist, which assesses the way an individual learns by creating a unique and individual profile to aid learning
- Providing safeguarding services to include support networks and groups relating to EDI
- Ensuring the GVNC application form complies with EDI and equal opportunities reflective of the characteristics including gender pronouns
- Including EDI questions to raise awareness for learners within tutorials and progress reviews
- Providing access to diagnostic assessment of learning needs if ALN is indicated for any learner
- Providing additional support to meet the needs of learners with an ECHP (Education, Health and Care Plan) as well as self-declared and identified needs during their programmes
- Ensuring learner progression is monitored continuously using a range of assessments and provide support as indicated
- Providing reasonable adjustments to facilitate training and achievement to all learners identified including learners who identify with cognitive domains measured on Cognassist
- Ensure digital resources and platforms are accessible and inclusive, including captioning, screen reader compatibility, and alternative formats upon request
The College will measure, review, and reinforce the effectiveness of the policy through:
- Quality Improvement Plan (QIP)
- Self-Assessment Report (SAR)
- Funded learners – QA of ILRs (Individual Learner Reviews) and ILPs (Individual Learning Plans)
- Learner progression data
- Staff and student surveys
- Success data analysis
- Collecting and disseminating examples of good practice
Any complaint made with regards to inequality is considered in line with the college complaints procedures, while also considering safeguarding of individuals. Learners who feel they have experienced discrimination will receive support from GVNC.
Learners who wish to make a complaint should follow GVNC’s procedure for learner complaints.
The principles and aims of this policy complement and are supported by other GVNC policies.