At Oakey Dokeys we are passionate about making every child and family feel valued, accepted and celebrated as unique individuals. We value everyone equally, regardless of ability, gender, class, ethnicity and beliefs. Our setting is inclusive to all, we strive to create an environment where children learn to respect and celebrate differences and feel proud and valued for who they are as individuals. We welcome all parents and children.
A Oakey Dokeys we promote 'equality', which means having the same rights, opportunities and advantages as others. It is not about treating everyone the same but about working together to ensure everyone's individual needs are met and celebrating individual strengths.
To ensure that we continue evaluating our setting with regard to equality of access, equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practices, one of the deputy managers is the setting's Equality Named Co-ordinator (ENCO) and we have a single equality scheme in place. In Essex our local authority promotes this approach.
PUBLIC SECTOR DUTIES
The role of the ENCO is to evaluate the provision ensuring every child is included and supported in an enabling environment; this is in line with the 'public sector duties' of the Equality Act 2010. The main duties of this role are to help plan and promote anti-discriminatory provision for children and their families, and to keep up-to-date on relevant legislation. The role also involves working in partnership with families and practitioners to remove barriers, so that all children can play and learn with each other.
In our setting we have embraced families and staff members who have firm beliefs and have been keen to find out more about their religion by visiting places of worship, remembering that we are part of a diverse society. Using real-life experiences of our families will avoid being tokenistic and will celebrate diversity in our setting.
As our pre-school is evolving. and taking into account the changes of committee members and new parents and staff members, we feel it is time to refresh the knowledge of all persons involved with the setting in relation to inclusive practices. We feel that some inhouse training would benefit everyone. The message taken from the ENCO training is that Inclusion is a journey, and no setting can be 'too inclusive'.