Reach Your Full Potential

Harlow College is committed to ensuring equality of opportunity for all who learn and work here. We respect and positively value differences in race, belief, gender, sexual orientation, disability, class and age. We will strive vigorously to remove conditions which place people at a disadvantage.

Disability Statement 2023-2024

Equality & Diversity Policy 2022-25

Equality and Diversity Annual Report 2022-23

We want to create a supportive and inclusive environment where everyone can reach their full potential and have a real choice to participate in and contribute to our activities and processes, without prejudice and discrimination. We are committed to a culture where respect and understanding is fostered and the diversity of people's backgrounds and circumstances will be positively valued.

The College is made up of a wide range of people with diverse backgrounds and circumstances, which we value and regard as a great asset. We are aware that some groups experience discrimination that has a negative effect on their quality of life. Legislation protects the rights of individuals and groups to ensure that discrimination is prevented and that they are given equal access to employment, education and other services. Those most often affected are disabled people, women, young and older people, lesbians, gay men, bisexual and trans-gendered people, people of faith or of no faith, black and minority ethnic people, part-time workers, and people with caring responsibilities.

Implementation of our Equality and Diversity Policy and our Equality Scheme and Action Plan, ‘Putting people at the heart of the College community’ help us to achieve this vision. Having greater equality and diversity brings many benefits to the College achieving greater efficiency and better performance from staff and will attract the best students and staff. This vision helps us to more effectively address the needs of different groups in our community.

How we implement and monitor our effectiveness

The College has developed a clear set of equality and diversity measures to access the impact of its policy and practice and benchmark college performance against comparable external outcomes. These include:

• Carrying out Equality Impact Assessments on all of our policies, practices and processes
• Having in place and Equality and Diversity Steering Group
• Working from a four-year Equality Action Plan (reviewed annually)
• Annual ‘focus project’ on a specific area of E&D
• Consulting with our students, staff and stakeholders
• Representation from our Students’ Union (E&D Officer)
• Producing an Equality and Diversity Annual Report for our Governing Body