An Explicit Commitment to Inclusion and Diversity

Like many organisations, The MTPT Project responded to the horrific murder of George Floyd in 2020 by sitting up and paying attention to the voices of the global majority colleagues within our community.

In many ways, we were fortunate: four years after our founding as a social media handle and grass roots network, 2020 was also the year that we registered as a charity.  We had a near-clean sheet to start from; few ingrained cultural issues within our organisation to unpick, and a whole lot of learning to do.

Even before The MTPT Project was ready for its current growth, it was very clear to me that we had the potential to be part of the problem: if we were empowering colleagues with networking and coaching opportunities over the parental leave period, they were more likely to remain in the profession.  They were more likely to remain in the profession happily.  They were more likely to have more options open to them.  They were more likely to progress into leadership, and increase their earnings.

Our first Diversity and Inclusion report was published in 2020, and stated, “we recognise that if we fail to explicitly engage with a diverse range of teachers, then we will play a part in disadvantaging certain groups within the education system.  This is not what we want.” (MTPT, 2020)

By 2023, our commitment had evolved further: “We recognise that by retaining a diverse range of teachers in the education system when they become parents, we are providing our students with powerful role models. In the long term, we therefore also want the demographic of these groups to represent the student body that we serve.” (MTPT, 2023)

As of October 2024, there are a number of things worth celebrating: in our annual Diversity and Inclusion report, we shared that 22.5% of the participants on our 1:1 and group coaching programmes in the previous academic year were colleagues from global majority backgrounds.  This is more than the 10% of Black, Asian, Mixed and Chinese teachers in our wider workforce (DfE, 2024), and closer to the 31% of students from these backgrounds (DfE, 2024).

What’s more, following the first Return to Work workshop of this academic year, we got even closer to our 31% target, with 30% of participants attending our live workshop identifying as Asian, Black, from Mixed ethnic backgrounds, or Chinese. 

These statistics look great, but why are they important?  Well, while maternal identities and experiences may vary by ethnicity and culture, motherhood intersects with many other identity markers.

By ensuring fully inclusive support is available to the mothers in our workforce, we are also providing support for one aspect of a Muslim mother’s identity.  Or for a working class mother’s identity.  Or for a lesbian mother’s identity.

By increasing representation across our communal events, we are defeating the “only” phenomenon whereby our community members feel welcome, but are still the only Bangladeshi participant in a workshop, or the only colleague who identifies as Mixed race in a group coaching session.

As representation increases, the identity of the organisation changes, along with its impact: this is a place for us, and we too shall benefit from what The MTPT Project has to offer.

This representation has not come about by chance, but rather an explicit resistance to the ease of creating an organisation that simply reflected its Founder, rather than the education system that we serve.

Start with Stats

As an organisation, what are your key measurables?  For The MTPT Project, they are: engagement in our coaching programmes, engagement in our workshops, and involvement in our core team.  What are your bench-markers for these measurables, and why?  For us, we moved away from aiming for the 10% workforce representation because this in itself is a statement of underrepresentation.

Get Educated, Create Space and Listen

Read, listen to podcasts, attend events.  Stop talking when others share their lived experiences, and thank them for doing so.  If you ask for support, do so judiciously and with humility: it is not our colleagues’ responsibility to teach us, but some may be very happy to be part of your organisation’s journey.  Then reflect on what all this means for your organisation, and your core work.

Be What You Can See

We worked explicitly on our visible role modelling.  Whether this was using stock images for our event promotion, or seeking out and platforming our case studies.  Wherever possible, we favour images of people of colour and we use these across all our channels: promotional fliers, social media, website, newsletters, panel line ups, guests we recommend for podcasts.  If we have the choice between an overrepresented face and an underrepresented face, we go with the face we suspect may need an explicit welcome.

Protect and Empower

Cost will always be a barrier in the education sector, and this is only exacerbated by the expense that comes with parenthood.  There are lots of other nuanced reasons why someone from whatever counts as a ‘minority group’ in your organisation (one of ours is men!) may not feel as comfortable asking for funding or opportunities as someone from the majority group.  

Wherever we can, we remove this barrier by seeking funding specifically for colleagues from global majority backgrounds, or finding other ways to earmark coaching and workshop places.  The message is: we have saved a place for you at this table, and it is ready for you when you arrive.  It has made a real difference to engagement.

Make Mistakes with Humility and Without Ego

For someone used to privilege (and a people pleaser!), this is easier said than done.  I have made mistakes.  Things have not worked.  Thankfully, I have not caused awful offence along the way but there have been moments of clumsiness borne from ignorance or simply the natural consequence of experimenting and taking a risk.  If a strategy doesn’t work, respond with pragmatism: roll with the learning process, reflect and take stock and… do more listening.

References:

MTPT Project, 2020, Diversity and Inclusion Report, https://mcusercontent.com/bda931ab27a93e7c781617948/files/94280f62-c7e3-4ae8-8362-9b20f86dfa17/2020_Diversity_Report.pdf

MTPT Project, 2023, Diversity and Inclusion Report, https://www.mtpt.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/2023-Diversity-and-Inclusion-Report.pdf

DfE, 2024, Schools Workforce Census, https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england

DfE, 2024, School Pupils and their Characteristics, https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-pupils-and-their-characteristics