Commitment to Equality

At Chailey School we are committed to ensuring equal access to high quality education for all children and young people, including those who are gifted and talented or those with special educational needs and/or disabilities.  

 All students follow the National Curriculum and have equal access to all subjects.  We value all students equally and aim to encourage respect for oneself and for others.  Not only do we recognise that all students are entitled to the maximum possible access to a broad and balanced curriculum, we also ensure that consideration for students with additional needs crosses all curriculum areas and all aspects of teaching and learning.  We have high expectations of all students, whatever their abilities.

We assess every student during the first few weeks at Chailey, enabling us to put additional programmes in place where necessary. 

Students who are identified as gifted and talented are provided with additional challenge, extension and opportunities and students who require additional or alternative support or provision are also catered for.  Every teacher is made aware of each individual student’s needs and student progress is monitored regularly. We strongly believe that the home-school partnership has a major role to play in helping all students overcome any difficulties in their school work.

Does a student need help with homework or access to specialist facilities?  Homework Club runs from 3.05-3.45pm on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  There is always help on hand and plenty of computer space.  (Not to mention refreshments to keep concentration levels up at the end of the school day!)

For very able students, the emphasis is not on extra work on top of doing the same thing as everyone else in the class but on getting the work right in terms of level of challenge and pitch for our most able students in day to day lessons.  Classwork and homework will be set which is either: more difficult, open to deeper understanding and interpretation, of a less structured more independent nature, covering more information, or linked to wider knowledge – perhaps beyond what would normally be covered in that particular year group.  We check this is happening regularly.

In addition to the day-to-day experience, a range of activities and experiences will be available to very able students to include:  UK Maths Challenge; BBC School News Report in English; G&T trips to London to focus on areas such as art, design technology and humanities; ‘STEM’ club in Science; English Speaking Union’s Public Speaking competition; Rotary Club’s Creative Writing competition; extra-curricular clubs in PE, Drama, Music , including opportunities to learn instruments; programming within ICT; the ‘Philosophy for Children’ programme run by our English Faculty; Library reading lists for our most able students and the Southern Schools’ Book Award; extra-curricular teaching for able students to support additional GCSEs in Modern Foreign Languages and PE; specialist coaches and experiences within PE (e.g. rugby; cricket; tennis); and our successful Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme – at Bronze and Silver Level.

Chailey School has worked hard in recent years to improve and increase access for disabled students to all parts of the school premises.  The recently built new main building provides disabled access to all areas of the building. 

For full details of our provision for students with additional needs, please ask for a copy of our Inclusion Policy – which is also available to download from the School website.  The School follows all statutory guidance and the Local Authority’s policies in relation to equal opportunities, race relations, disability and sex discrimination and copies of these are available on request.