At The Reverse Mentoring Practice, we want to have BIG, game-changing conversations

Stacy Johnson portrait

Written by Stacy Johnson MBE

Chief Scientific Officer and Founder of The Reverse Mentoring Practice. Stacy is a leading voice on the frontier of justice, inclusion and belonging work. She helps organisations to re-imagine, re-engineer and reset their culture. Her groundbreaking work on reverse mentoring and practice supervision is making waves. Stacy is #TriniToDeBone

We want to talk about reverse mentoring in situations where you’re trying to improve inclusion, as an approach to retaining staff, and who may also be dealing with barriers to inclusion, who may find themselves in tricky situations and circumstances related to their protected characteristic. We do not want to have superficial conversations.

We want to celebrate the lived experiences of people through the magic of reverse mentoring, whether it is informal or formal, whether it’s programmatic in your organisation, or ad hoc. 

We want to help you listen differently, to spark change in your organisations by empowering you and your senior leaders to move forward with cultural humility to ignite equitable action. 

We sat down with Stacy Johnson MBE, our Chief Scientific Officer & Founder at Reverse Mentoring Practice who shared her insight and research on reverse mentoring. In the online seminar Stacy also held a question-and-answer session where one member asked: 

Q: How can we get the people that would benefit from a mentoring relationship interested? 

Stacy: Whether you are a very senior person or a junior person, you should periodically pause and assess. 

Ask yourself: Am I being mentored? Am I mentoring anybody else? And if one of those things is not true, you need to make that right. You should always, at any point whether it’s formally or informally, be mentoring or being mentored.  

It’s about reminding people on both sides of the equation that there is benefit from being a mentor and being mentored.  

As far as those who are already converted, we should be more open about what mentoring is. 

For example, the way I got a reverse mentor was because an amazing young man said to me, “will you mentor me?” And I actually felt a bit of horror. In fact, I remember saying to him, “I’m a terrible mentor! Let’s just meet and have some coffees!”  

And then eventually, after several of those meetings, I said, “actually, will you reverse mentor me?”  

I guess that’s because I had never been formally trained as a mentor. Some people have the impression that you have to be really knowledgeable, and you have to have all the answers. The idea of being formally asked to be a mentor is probably quite intimidating to even the most amazing leaders.  

For me, I just want to have interesting conversations with this amazing young man and share ideas about things that had worked for me, things that I’d seen had worked for other people who were similar to him, or different to him. As soon as he labelled that mentoring, I panicked. So, it might be the same the other way around.   

Maybe for the people who are not yet converted, it’s about offering it up as an informal relationship and connecting with somebody who is more junior to you, or more senior to you. Maybe that pulls them in, they begin to see the benefits and then they can happily then label it mentoring. They will be extolling the virtues of mentoring, and you won’t have to convince them. 

If you want to know more, join us at the Diverse Educators webinar where we will explore how we unlock the potential of reverse mentoring and cultural humility in driving personal growth and organisational success. The recording will also be available to playback afterwards.

by Hannah Wilson

An Explicit Commitment to Inclusion and Diversity

MTPT logo

Written by The MTPT Project

The UK’s only charity for parent teachers, with a particular focus on the parental leave and return to work period.

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

by Hannah Wilson

The theme behind my Children’s book – Zeb, Jet and the Ice-Cream Calamity.

Mirabel Lavelle portrait

Written by Mirabel Lavelle

Mirabel is a qualified Teaching and Learning Coach, Creative Writing Lecturer, Allergy Awareness Advocate and Author of: Zeb, Jet and the Ice-Cream Calamity. An adventure story aimed at raising food allergy safety awareness. She is also the founder of: writebymirabel.co.uk – Crafting stories: where every voice counts and allergies matter. a website dedicated to the art of crafting stories, especially those that help raise awareness to disability, equity and inclusion.

I am a teacher and grandmother who loves stories. Two of my grandchildren carry auto-injector pens because of food allergies. One day, the older of the two asked me if I would write a story book about allergy. Hence, Jet, Zeb and the Ice-Cream Calamity.

I want to encourage the reader to learn about allergy, to become actively aware of how to safeguard and to include children with food allergies at social events such as Easter egg hunts, trick or treating, and parties without the fear of reaction to food – or worse still – anaphylaxis. I would like the reader to ask:

 ‘How can we plan a party that children with food allergies can safely enjoy?’ 

Allergic disease is a disease of the immune system, and it is the fastest growing disease among children in the UK. This condition impairs the sufferer on a day-to-day basis, in many different ways.

Sufferers cannot eat the same food as everyone else unless it has been prepared especially. This has substantial implications. For example, in school during lunchtimes a child may be asked to sit at a separate table because of their food allergies. Outside of school a child may be excluded from social events that centre around food because of a nervous adult. 

The culture this creates is that if a child is different in any way, for example by having a dietary requirement, then society will exclude them. New studies are showing certain children, who have experienced anaphylaxis, to display allergy related anxieties and behaviours that are similar to PTSD.

This is why I want to raise food allergy safety awareness. I want to educate so that we can eradicate food cross contamination. This way we can significantly reduce allergy anxiety and promote inclusion at all times.

My story book features a relatable fox cub (Zeb) and playful puppy (Jet) as characters, rather than humans, because of the subject matter. Jet has a food allergy and when Zeb meets Jet, he learns how to be allergy safe aware. This  exciting adventure encourages children to want to help Jet by telling others about how to keep him safe. It is an adventure that celebrates diversity, equity and inclusion.

I reinforced my message by creating a joyous song. The chorus shows how to significantly minimise food cross contamination. Children love music, the catchy chorus carries the central and crucial message of the book.

This book invites children to learn about allergy safeguarding by finding out about simple yet responsible behaviour around allergic kids. One example is not to leave wrappers, which may contain allergens, lying around but to bin them responsibly. My message to the reader is about building a society of caring individuals so that no one has to get sick because of the carelessness of others.

I added differentiated tasks to encourage readers to ask more questions about allergy. I want children to have fun whilst they learn. After all, it is through stories and through education and by putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes that we become more understanding of others. 

Going into schools to deliver allergy safety events is a very rewarding experience for me because of the positive response from children and staff. They are providing me with a wealth of exciting ideas on how to continue taking my campaign of safe allergy inclusion, forward. 

When I first wrote the book, I wanted it to be a key educational resource as well as an entertaining adventure. I aimed to provide schools and communities a point of reference that raises awareness and encourages people to want to know more about allergies and their impact. I needed to ensure that allergy sufferers are included in all activities that everyone their age enjoys. Since taking the book and the presentation into schools and libraries, it continues to inspire a range of immersive activities such as art projects, drama, puppet shows and animation. 

This book highlights equity and the tasks that follow the story are focussed on finding ways that are fair and inclusive for Jet. The story affords time to explore feelings, such as Zeb’s feelings after Jet got sick. It creates an opportunity for discussion, for thinking, for empathising, and for bringing about positive change.

Useful Links:

The Natasha Allergy Research Foundation (narf.org.uk)

The Benedict Blythe Foundation Allergy & Education Foundation | Benedict Blythe Foundation

The Sadie Bristow Foundation: Don’t Be Afraid to Be Great

 

by Hannah Wilson

Don’t Assume…

Gerlinde Achenbach portrait

Written by Gerlinde Achenbach

Gerlinde Achenbach is a senior education consultant and former primary headteacher. Her career spans more than 35 years, with over 30 years teaching in schools. Since 2021 she has been supporting schools across the UK with Equity, Diversity & Inclusion, specifically LGBTQ+ inclusion. Her expertise is in leadership and changing school culture.

It is a reality that every LGBTQ+ stakeholder within a school community – child or young person, member of staff, visitor, parent or carer – is on the receiving end of constant heteronormative messaging. This isn’t because schools are not complying with their Public Sector Equality Duty or because they’re not focused on being inclusive. It’s because the world is set up to portray ‘usual’ as heterosexual. 

The Oxford languages dictionary defines heteronormativity as: “denoting or relating to a world view that promotes heterosexuality as the normal or preferred sexual orientation.” 

Heteronormativity permeates every aspect of school life. It’s in the images on our walls, it’s in the things we say and in what we do. Put simply, there’s an unspoken acceptance that it is ‘the norm’. It confirms for us that heterosexual relationships dominate the human experience. It also reminds us of the relationship between heterosexuality and gender inequity for women and girls through history. We see this every day, where gendered language, stereotyping and imbalanced expectations still dominate our lived experience in the wider world. We like to think we work hard to challenge this in our schools…but are we doing enough?

What can heteronormativity look like in schools?

Environments

  • Most images of families show mums and dads. This can be on ‘welcome’ posters or in books and images on display. 
  • We find ‘corporate’ cartoon images depicting (stereotypical) boy, girl, boy, girl across school spaces. 
  • Books and literature have not been evaluated in terms of how representative they are of different types of families or identities.

Systems and Policies

  • In primary schools we have a habit of assuming (unless told otherwise) that a child has heterosexual parent(s) and that our children will end up in heterosexual relationships.
  • We include ‘mother / father’ on application forms and permission slips.
  • The words ‘Mr & Mrs’ are on the tips of our tongues when referring to families. 
  • Our school uniform policies state gendered expectations for girls and boys, even down to shoe styles. 
  • Our staff dress code does the same. 
  • We appoint a Head Girl and a Head Boy.
  • Our website staff lists denote marital status first – Mrs, Miss, Mr – and we have the same on classroom doors.

Communication and Language

  • We welcome our children with “Good morning, boys and girls” and our staff, or parents and carers, with “ladies and gentlemen”. 
  • The phrase, “Tell / give this to / show / ask your mum and dad” rolls off the tongue  for most school staff. 
  • Staff address girls as ‘darling’, ‘princess’, ‘sweetie’, and boys as ‘mate’, ‘mister’, ‘dude’. 
  • We hear the terms ‘Headmaster’ and ‘Headmistress’. We address staff as ‘Sir’ and ‘Miss’.
  • We hear adults calling for ‘a couple of strong boys’ for certain tasks around school.

Practice and Culture

  • We line up our classes in boys’ and girls’ lines, or in a boy, girl formation. 
  • We seat them on their carpet ladybird places or at tables in the same way. 
  • We separate and organise children by gender for the most random of reasons and activities.
  • We organise role play, construction and crafts with different genders in mind, albeit subconsciously.
  • We appoint class names of famous scientists, authors, sports people or musicians where the majority are male (and straight).
  • The staff culture feels fixed, exclusive, cliquey and difficult to break into.
  • Staff congratulate themselves on the way they have always done things. 

I have deliberately not set out here inclusive versions of the above examples. They are a starting point for whole staff thinking and they’re guaranteed to promote worthwhile discussion. It’s important in our schools to do the hard work required, challenge heteronormativity in all its guises and ask the following questions:

  • Might a child with same-sex parents feel quietly excluded in our school?  
  • Will their parents feel welcome?
  • How about a child who has lost a parent, or a child who is care-experienced? 
  • Have we removed assumptions in all our interactions with families?
  • Can a member of staff, whatever their sexual orientation or identity, can be their authentic self at work?
  • Are our language and expectations truly gender-inclusive?
  • Is our inclusive approach understood by all groups of staff in their varying roles across school?

Why does this matter? It matters because of the need for us all to feel we belong in the places where we, or our loved ones, spend a good deal of time. Marian Wright Edelman coined the phrase, ‘You can’t be what you can’t see’, and this matters if you rarely see yourself (child or adult) or your family represented in your school. Representation is validation.

It matters because subliminal messages such as those received (through unthinking words, gendered phrases and activities defined by gender) by girls and women, or by those for whom gender is not fixed or for whom gender causes anguish, can be damaging and self-fulfilling over time.

by Hannah Wilson

Be where you are embraced, not celebrated: exploring use of language when developing an equality ethos

Andrew Moffat portrait

Written by Andrew Moffat

Andrew Moffat has been teaching for 25 years and is currently PD Lead at Excelsior MAT. He is the author of “No Outsiders in our school: Teaching the Equality Act in Primary Schools” and “No Outsiders: everyone different, everyone welcome”. In 2017 Andrew was awarded a MBE for services to equality and diversity in education and in 2019 he was listed as a top ten finalist in the Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize.

Can we talk about the word celebrate?

I am a big supporter of Diverse Educators, but the use of the word celebrate in the tag line I think is not needed, in fact I believe it could be detrimental to our aims. “Be where you are celebrated…” Really? Do I need to be celebrated? For what? Being male, being gay, wearing glasses? Really?

Diverse Educators are not alone using this word; I used it in the past. My first resource on teaching LGBT equality in 2006, “Challenging homophobia in Primary Schools” (published by Coventry City Council in 2007 and by Birmingham City Council in 2010) states in the introduction, “Every child benefits from an ethos of mutual respect and a celebration of who they are.” (p2) and later, “Children need to understand that the world is full of different people who like different things and we should celebrate that fact with them.”(p5)

In my first properly published book, “No Outsiders: Teaching the Equality Act in primary schools” (2015) I state, “We have to be delivering a curriculum where diversity and difference are celebrated.”

But by 2020 I had changed my mind. I was trying to step away from the use of the word celebrate trying to find alternative words. Why? Because I was facing significant challenges to my equality work from a religious perspective, and I had to find a way to bring people on board. 

Let me explain…

2019 was a very difficult year. RSE ruined my life! Everything was going fine until new RSE guidance from the DfE suddenly put LGBT+ education into the spotlight. Despite my school successfully running No Outsiders for four years previously to 2019, suddenly there were huge protests outside my school against it. “Stop sexualising children!” “My child, my choice!” “Stop indoctrination now!” “Stop No Outsiders,” read the placards. The protests lasted for 6 months and then fizzled out. Today, that school runs No Outsiders successfully and it’s like the protests never happened. A 2022 Ofsted report for the school opens with the line, “Children say there are no outsiders here and that everyone is welcome.” 

During the protests, I received a letter from Mike Smith, a vicar from Cheshire who was also a chair of governors at a primary school. Mike was writing to express support but in the letter, he also mentioned the language I was using. Mike pointed out that I was asking schools to celebrate diversity and that meant in turn, asking schools to celebrate LGBT equality. As a Christian, Mike argued, he could not ‘celebrate’ LGBT people as he believes marriage is fundamentally between a man and woman. However, he could tolerate LGBT people; he wanted to be an ally. Mike asked me to consider using the word tolerate more, rather than celebrate.

Hmmm….

My initial reaction was absolutely not! I have never liked the word tolerate. Tolerate is word used when you are putting up with something; a buzzing noise, rain. I am not going to teach children to tolerate each other. It feels so wrong.

But I was in the middle of this mess at the time. People shouting at me from all sides. And maybe stopping and listening is the best policy. So, I got in contact with Mike and we talked. Mike was brilliant. He really shifted my thinking on this as we came together from two very different places and tried to find a way through.

Mike asked me, “Do you need to celebrate to feel accepted?” It’s a good question. I’ve worked in schools for nearly 30 years, and we’ve always blithely said, “We celebrate diversity,” whatever school I’ve been in. But let’s just step back for a moment and ask what that looks like. How do you stop that being tokenistic? ‘Ooh it’s pride month – get the rainbow flags out!’ 

The other problem here is that we don’t live in that rose tinted world. Homophobia exists, racism exists, misogyny exists. There are some people in our communities who simply do not wish to celebrate Pride month or celebrate gay people existing, and they should not be forced to. As an adult, you are not forced to join a pride parade; you cannot stop it happening and there are laws that protect the existence of LGBT people, but you do not have to celebrate that. You just need to accept it happens. 

Should schools be celebrating LGBT+ people? If we are truly preparing children for life in modern Britain, shouldn’t we instead be teaching children that Pride exists, asking why it exists and recognising that some people join pride parades as a means of protest, some as a means of celebration, and some people don’t agree with it. Children should form their own opinions. As long as a child is not othering someone, judging and saying they are wrong for being who they are, I think it’s ok for a child to choose not to celebrate pride. Pride exists and will be celebrated whether that child joins in or not. You could argue a debate about Pride where children are encouraged to disagree, only strengthens the arguments for Pride existing! 

There was a perception at the school where we had protests that we were forcing children of faith to celebrate LGBT equality. I don’t think we were doing that, but perception among parents is everything in schools, isn’t it. After conversations with Mike, together we came up with an alternative word to celebrate which was “accept”. At my school we spoke to parents about removing the word celebrate and we changed displays from “We celebrate diversity” to “We are diverse” or “We accept each other’s differences”. I really tried to show that I was listening and changing my language and the parents appreciated my efforts. I wrote a chapter in the second No Outsiders book “All different, all welcome” (2020) called “Tolerate, celebrate, accept” where I explained what I was trying to do. Lots of schools, particularly where there was a large faith cohort, told me they liked this strategy.

But I was never happy with the word “Accept”. I was constantly searching for an alternative word and then it came – “Embrace”. I think “We embrace diversity” is fantastic. You can embrace something without necessarily agreeing with it. You don’t have to celebrate it. 

So, since 2021, embrace is the word I have been using. In my own school hall we have a great display (see below) with the words “We are different – we belong here” which is perfect. I think celebrating can be triggering for some people, particularly when talking about LGBTQ+ and faith, so I have simply removed it.

I always discuss this in my training, and I always say, “Of course, I may be wrong about this!” I have been wrong in the past and maybe I’m wrong here, I think it’s certainly worth a discussion and I may change my mind in future. I also want to make clear that I absolutely celebrate Pride every year myself. I have been to three Prides this year and I love them. I love being gay and I’m very proud to be gay and to be out to people. But I don’t need you to celebrate me. I do want you to accept me without judgement, but I don’t need a clap! 

Find out more about No Outsiders: www.no-outsiders.com

Find our new No Outsiders scheme of work for 2024 “No Outsiders: We belong here” by Andrew Moffat (Speechmark, 2024)

Watch the film of Mike Smith talking about our conversations and language https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PeUmCprYfo&t=2s

by Hannah Wilson

How to lead a diversity research group

Jayne Carter portrait

Written by Jayne Carter

Jayne is the Director of Ignite Education Ltd, providing consultancy for practitioners within the Early Years & Primary sector. She uses coaching a a model for change, facilitating professional conversations which are focused on empowering others & generating growth in knowledge & skills.

As part of the L.E.A.D Teaching School Hub’s extensive offer for EDI, I was invited to lead a diversity research group based on Bennie Kara’s fantastic book: Diversity in Schools. This blog is intended to support others who may wish to run similar groups for teachers and school leaders. 

The research group was structured around one session per month for each book chapter. It worked well for each participant to read the focus chapter in preparation for the meeting, to be ready to discuss their reflections and implications for their own practice. 

Discussions were facilitated around the key messages included in each chapter with the addition of extra resources focused on the needs of the group. 

The aims of the research group included:

  • To use research & literature as a tool for school improvement
  • To develop a culture of peer-to-peer support & critical analysis
  • To implement key strategies & approaches at a whole school level

Some of the attendees wanted to focus on whole school implementation, whereas others wanted to improve their own subject knowledge in preparation to share at school. 

Each session included a planned gap task based on the focus of the chapter as well as an individual gap task which was identified by each attendee in order to meet the needs of their school.

For example, the third session focused on the chapter ‘How can we create a diverse classroom?’ Everyone carried out the audit included in the book. Individual gap tasks that were chosen included; 

  • sharing UNESCO inclusion research with members of their SLT
  • exploring the free trial of Lyfta as a whole-school EDI resource
  • considering how to organise their seating plan to ensure inclusivity 
  • evaluating the use of cold calling/trio conversations in their classrooms. 

Time was planned into the following sessions to discuss reflections from the individual gap tasks and all resources were included in a workgroup padlet. The padlet worked well to ensure that everyone had constant access to key resources/research. It also provided an effective means of communication between meetings.  

Being able to meet frequently with attendees helped me as a workgroup lead to understand the priorities for each school and what was important to them. As the meetings progressed, I was able to structure the sessions to become even more personalised to the group’s needs, with additional research and tools being shared and added to the padlet.

Over the seven sessions, attendees enhanced their EDI improvement plan or developed their own EDI plan. The next steps identified after each chapter supported these improvement plans by providing structure and focus. 

During the final session the overall impact of and reflections about the workgroup were collected:

  • All attendees found the structure of the workgroup useful as it moved from a training session to meetings which were collaborative and supportive of an action research improvement model. 
  • Attendees liked the planned gap tasks; especially the opportunity to carry out a shared task, which helped shared discussions but also a gap task which was personalised and prompted change at a school level. 
  • All attendees noted that the additional resources sourced and added to the padlet were valuable with everyone committing to using the padlet next academic year.

As the workgroup lead, the opportunity to guide attendees into analysing research was valuable as it gave me a useful reminder of day-to-day school priorities. One of my own personal outstanding reflections was the knowledge that the plans developed would be sustained as they had been developed carefully and with the vision of not only what needed to be in place but why.

My thanks to Bennie Kara for creating such an accessible and informative book. I hope that this blog encourages others to lead more reading groups or research groups on diversity in schools across the sector.

by Hannah Wilson

LGBT+ Education in School - Having Effective Conversations with Parents

Mel Lane portrait

Written by Mel Lane

Mel Lane (she/her) is Head of Education at Pop’n’Olly. She has been a primary school teacher and teacher trainer for nearly 30 years and worked in schools on LGBT+ inclusion policies with thousands of children and school staff. Mel is a co- author of What Does LGBT+ Mean? (Pop’n’Olly, 2021).

When it comes to LGBT+ education in school, parents are often portrayed in the mainstream media as unsupportive and battling with teachers – but the reality is completely different. 82% of parents actively want their children to be taught about diverse families, including those with same-sex relationships. Having worked with over 10,000 children, I have experienced, time and time again, that parents are almost always supportive of LGBT+ inclusion work in school. 

However, there are of course still a minority of parents who struggle with, and have concerns, about LGBT+ education. This is why empowering schools and teachers to have effective conversations is important. But how do we do this? Here are some themes that you may wish to include in these discussions: 

Ethos and Values

Chances are you already promote equality and celebrate difference in your school.  Maybe it’s in your school mission statement? e.g.

‘Brave, unique, caring and kind’

‘Hope, community, respect, love’

‘Respect for each other, Respect for our school, Respect for learning’

LGBT+ isn’t an add-on, it’s part of this whole-school approach. So when having conversations with parents, it’s vital you keep coming back to your whole-school ethos and discuss how LGBT+ education is a part of this.  

Children’s Mental Health

We know that children learn better when they feel relaxed and able to be themselves. One teacher was so pleased to share with me how much more animated and engaged a Year 1 child had become after a session on families included two Mums, just like her family.  All children benefit from conversations about LGBT+ inclusion because when we celebrate diversity we send a message to everyone that they are welcome in school whatever their uniqueness looks like.

Knowledge and Understanding

63% of 8-15 year olds know someone close to them who is LGBT+ Children are already having conversations about LGBT+ lives and some of them are searching for information online.  School is a safe place where children can ask questions of trusted adults to find out reliable, accurate information. UK children all live in a country where being LGBT+ is protected by law and we shouldn’t hide this information from students. In fact, under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), all children have a right to this information.  

Legal Obligations

Helping young people understand and develop positive relationships with people who are different from them is part of UK law and included in the Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) Guidance for Schools

The Public Sector Equality Duty (Section 149 of the Equality Act, 2010) states that schools must have due regard to “the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.” 

Ofsted guidance also states that, “Schools can choose to teach the beliefs of any faith on the protected characteristics. They may explain that same-sex relationships and gender reassignment are not permitted by a particular religion. However, if they do so, they must also explain the legal rights of LGBT people under UK law, and that this and LGBT people must be respected”

Supporting Parents

Sometimes parents worry that life will be harder for their child if they are LGBT+. Sometimes they’re worried about being judged by other parents. Schools often have a lot more experience supporting LGBT+ young people than parents do. A parent of a trans child told me how much better they felt that their child’s school was supportive of their child’s transition – it gave the parent confidence and helped them navigate a completely new and sometimes challenging time.

Conversations with parents almost always eliminate fears, tackle misconceptions and build better relationships. You can find out much more information on how to have these conversations in Pop’n’Olly’s ‘Discussions With Parents’ document.

by Hannah Wilson

How Do We Make Our Classrooms Feel Like Home to Each and Every Student

Kwame Sarfo-Mensah portrait

Written by Kwame Sarfo-Mensah

Kwame Sarfo-Mensah holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and a Master’s Degree in Elementary Education from Temple University. For nine years, he served as a middle school math teacher in Philadelphia, PA and Boston, MA. Currently, he is the founder of Identity Talk Consulting, a global educational consulting firm. Throughout his 17-year career as a classroom teacher, author, and consultant, Kwame has earned numerous accolades for this work. His newest book, "Learning to Relearn: Supporting Identity in a Culturally Affirming Classroom", will be coming out Fall 2024.

For context, I’m a first generation Ghanaian American who has spent all but three years of my life living outside of Ghana.  While I mostly understand my family’s home language, Twi, I grew up not really being taught the language by my parents.  We learned a few Twi words here and there but English was the main medium of communication in our household and every other environment we found ourselves in. Growing up in the United States, I felt like an outsider.  I thought those feelings would change when I moved to Ghana at 12 years old and lived there for 3 years.  Even while living there, I felt like an outsider. 

I’ve never been a clean fit in any of my worlds. I’ve always been different.  My whole life has been spent living outside the margins of the dominant culture.  In more ways than one, I’ve received harmful messages and mistreatment to remind me of that reality.  The following traumatic scenario, which I’ve played out in my mind for the last 10 years, is a prime example of this predicament.

Okay, let me set the stage…

Imagine yourself on an airplane that is heading to the Kotoka International Airport.  As the plane makes its descent towards the airport, your anxiety heightens because you know the course of events that are about to follow. The minute you get off the plane, you know you’ll have to go straight to the immigration booth, which means that you’ll have to hand over your American passport to a Ghanaian immigration officer for visa inspection. By all means, what I’ve mentioned thus far is standard protocol but this is where things take a left turn. So you hand your American passport over to the immigration officer, he turns to your bio page and discovers your name, “Kwame Karikari Sarfo-Mensah”. For a brief moment, the officer looks at you and then looks back at your passport.  At this moment, you have two options for a response.  You can either…

  1. respond to the officer in English, leaving yourself subject to questioning from the officer as to why you have this strong Ghanaian name and are not speaking to them in Twi.
  2. respond to the officer in Twi, leaving yourself subject to ridicule and harsh criticism as to how you could be Ghanaian and not be able to speak Twi fluently.

Unsure of how to respond, you freeze in panic because you know what’s about to happen next.  The officer will either call you an oburoni and crack jokes about you with their co-workers nearby or look at you in disgust and shame you for not being able to speak Twi fluently.

While this story is specific to my experience, I can assure you that others who grew up as third culture kids or immigrant students have dealt with a similar scenario to the one I just described. Whether you teach abroad in an international school or in a K-12 school within the United States, chances are you’ll have a few students within your classrooms who are struggling to make sense of their identities or searching for spaces where they are welcomed, accepted, and fully embraced for who they are. A space where no one is interrogating them or invalidating their lived experience.

These students I’m referring to are your multilingual students, students with IEPs and 504 plans, immigrant and migrant students, neurodiverse students, students who are disabled, students who practice non-Christian faiths, students who are BIPOC, students who are LGBTQ+, etc. Although they may enter your classroom with vastly different lived experiences, they are two things they all have in common:

  1. They find themselves outside the margins of white dominant culture.
  2. They all deserve to be in a classroom that feels like HOME.

Understanding that every student defines home differently, how can we make our classrooms feel like home for each and every student?  We can start by thinking about our own homes. When you’re in our homes, we’re in spaces where……

  • we feel a sense of psychological and emotional safety and comfort
  • we can express ourselves unapologetically
  • we receive support and care from loved ones
  • we belong and feel welcomed,valued and accepted
  • we thrive off of routine and stability 
  • we’re connecting intimately with our loved ones
  • cherished memories and family history are held near and dear to our hearts

Regardless of who we are and where we come from, we all want to experience that feeling of home as I’ve described above. We deserve that feeling because it’s a human right, as recognized by the United Nations. In this world where government officials across the globe are shutting down DEI programs, censoring and banning culturally responsive and identity-affirming curriculum in schools, and pushing anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, it is more imperative than ever for us, as educators, to create classroom spaces of inclusion and belonging that feel like home for our most vulnerable students.

We may not be able to solve all the world’s problems but there are a few key things we can do to make our students feel comfortable in our classrooms:

In the end, no student should ever feel the way I felt during my childhood.  By making our classrooms feel like home for our students, we’re committing ourselves to normalizing and embracing the beauty of difference, as informed by the intersectional nature of our respective identities.  And finally, we’re committing ourselves to building learning spaces where joy, love, and acceptance are living parts of our classroom culture. 

by Hannah Wilson

The Hypocrisy at the Heart of Racist Riots

Dr Nilufar Ahmed portrait

Written by Dr Nilufar Ahmed

Dr Nilufar Ahmed is a multi award winning Chartered Psychologist, Academic, and Accredited Psychotherapist. She works as an academic at the University of Bristol where her research and pedagogy focus on Inclusion and Engagement. Her work is situated in an antiracist and Intersectional framework. She is regularly invited to comment in the media on all things psychology and has delivered training, keynotes, and consultancy services across sectors including HE, business, and Government.

Originally published by The Conversation on 9/8/24

When news broke that a 17-year-old male had stabbed a number of young girls in Southport, misinformation swiftly followed. First, that the perpetrator was an asylum seeker or refugee who had come to the UK on a boat. This was discredited and information emerged that the individual was British-born. But the circulation of disinformation, including a fake, Arab-sounding name, led many to argue it must have been a Muslim male.

Though the perpetrator has no known links to Islam, violent, far-right rioters still mobilised to attack mosques. Islamophobic violence spilled onto the streets in the worst race riots Britain has seen in years.

The fact that this misinformation was so readily believed can be partly explained by psychology, and how we think about people who look like us, and about others who don’t.

People are conditioned to identify with their in-group – others who are like them on a range of markers such as race, gender, class or nationality. The maintenance of this shared identity largely requires “us” to be different (meaning better) than “them” by making negative inferences about them.

This automatic psychological response explains how people can see the self and the in-group as complex and fluid (for example, not all white people are criminals) but frame the out-group as homogeneous and fixed. This can lead, as we’ve seen, to some people casting all black men as dangerous, Muslims as terrorists, asylum seekers as opportunistic and refugees as “taking” jobs and healthcare resources, justifying the dislike and even hatred of the out-group.

The racism of this public reaction to a horrific attack on children is stark when you compare it to other recent events.

When a white male killed a 14-year-old black boy named Daniel Anjorin with a sword in May, protesters did not mobilise around the country to “protect children”. Neither were white men as a group deemed a threat to the safety of children.

Whenever crimes, however heinous, are committed by white perpetrators, they are more often viewed as the acts of an individual who was at fault because of mental health issues or falling in with the wrong crowd. There is a long history of disparate treatment of criminals in the media linked to race.

People are socially conditioned to think heinous acts are committed by outsiders. There are a number of cognitive biases at play here, including contextual bias, where decisions are influenced by background information rather than the crime itself, and affinity bias, where people prefer others who are like them.

These biases are present in individual cases, but also across the judicial system. Inequalities in sentencing perpetuate the narrative that people of colour are more dangerous and disposed to crime.

A study commissioned by the Crown Prosecution Service also found that people of colour are significantly more likely to be prosecuted than white people for the same crimes. Such inequity results in overrepresentation in prisons and with convictions. This then feeds the narrative that people of colour are more likely to commit crime – when in fact they are simply more likely to be prosecuted.

The Blame Game

In times of scarcity, this in-group/out-group bias can become simplified and exacerbated to justify withholding resources from the out-group, who the in-group perceives as “undeserving”. Out-group scapegoats offer an easy and reliable way of deflecting responsibility by those with power.

This is what has happened over the past 14 years in Britain. While the Conservative government created an unstable economic climate and deep poverty through cuts to public services and economic turmoil, it is politically convenient to suggest the reason for scarce resources is a small number of asylum seekers.

The previous government used the negative attitudes towards refugees and immigrants as a core pillar of its election campaign. Politicians used increasingly inflammatory language in relation to immigration, blaming immigrants for things like the housing crisis and depleted health resources as a way shifting attention from their cuts in spending.

Anti-racist counter-protests have organised all around the country. Simon Dack News/Alamy

Over time, the scapegoats have been boiled down to one homogenised group of people who are not white. This is apparent in the differential treatment of asylum seekers from Ukraine, who were welcomed to the UK and allowed to work and be housed.

Asylum seekers from the rest of the world are not allowed to work on arrival and receive just £49.18 a week. This feeds the narrative that white people work, while people of colour don’t (though somehow are simultaneously “taking our jobs”).

The relentless scapegoating dovetails with the psychological biases we are all socially conditioned to fall for, creating an “us” and “them” environment that can easily turn violent. The events of the past two weeks have awakened much of Britain to the consequences that can arise when society is defined this way.

by Hannah Wilson

The UK Race Riots, Summer 2024 - The Aftermath

Diverse Educators Logo

Written by DiverseEd

Diverse Educators started as a grassroots network in 2018 to create a space for a coherent and cohesive conversation about DEI. We have evolved into a training provider and event organiser for all things DEI.

It has been a difficult summer for many people across the UK as hate has manifested itself online and on the streets of our country.

The loss of innocent lives have been used as an excuse to riot, with those enacting civil disorder and violence under the cover of protesting and the right to freedom of speech.  

Protests quickly became riots. Riots escalated into acts of terrorism.

And let’s not forget that the spate of racist, islamophobic, anti-migrant incidents took place during South Asian Heritage Month.

Many pupils, educators and parents/ carers will be returning to school in the coming weeks scared and traumatised by what has happened, by what they have experienced and by what they have witnessed. There will also be a number of these groups who are also emboldened in their attitudes, beliefs and behaviours. So, how do we challenge this? 

Some questions for us to reflect on and to discuss as part of our DEIB strategic approach:

  • How prepared are we to create safety, to offer support, to protect our communities?   
  • How will we take an anti-racist stand as a profession, as organisations and as leaders? 
  • How will we review all aspects of school life moving forwards through an intersectional lens? 
  • How will we ensure our approach to supporting our school communities is trauma-informed?
  • What training have your different stakeholders had, and what further training and support do they need?
  • How are we supporting the wellbeing of your DEIB leader/ working party as they manage the emotional tax of doing the necessary work that is likely to be triggering for their own lived experience?
  • Do we have staff briefings ready and are assemblies, tutor activities and PSHE lessons prepared?   

It is important to ensure that these questions move from being words to become actions.

In our work at #DiverseEd we encourage people to consider how we are developing consciousness, confidence and competence in ourselves and others. We also encourage our network to look in the mirror before we look out of the window – we need to do the inner work alongside the outer work to make sure what we do is authentic, considered and not performative.   

We appreciate that:

  • There is a lot to process. 
  • There is a lot to do. 
  • There is a lot of overwhelm. 

We need to learn the lessons from the Anti Racism work schools jumped to in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder – it is important for us to take action but it is more important to think about what needs to be done in different school contexts. How do the incidents this summer feed into our ongoing DEIB work? How do we commit to proactivity instead of reactivity?

Let’s learn from the mistakes made in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. Let’s not be silent, but let’s consider who is doing the talking and presenting to each stakeholder group. Let’s be mindful of who we have consulted, which voices have been listened to to frame the message and how it is delivered and how it lands. 

Let’s also consider how we are working with our local community. What does a connected community look and feel like for all community members? How are we building bridges, creating safe spaces, carving out opportunities to listen and nurturing collaborative partnerships?

Below we have collated resources and we signpost support that has been shared by our network to help navigate the next few weeks as we return to school.

As an anti-racist school leader we can show our support by undertaking the following key reading and actions to get started:

Some free training events as term starts which you may wish to attend/ share with colleagues:

Some organisational statements in response to the riots to read and consider your own public messaging as an organisation:

Some thought-provoking posts by individuals in response to the riots to read, reflect on and discuss with colleagues: 

Some next steps to consider getting involved in:

Some further resources to review and share:

  • PSHE Association – Belonging and community: addressing discrimination and extremism
  • Spark and Co – Standing Together Against Racist Violence: Support for Communities of Colour in the UK 

Some further reading to read and discuss with colleagues:

  • Dawn Butler – There’s a huge difference between free speech and hate speech
  • Nafeez Ahmed – Exposing the Real UK Race Riot Instigators: The Key Players and Transatlantic Network Around Tommy Robinson
  • Torsten Bell – Despite appearances, Britons are more tolerant than ever
  • Zahra Sultana – ‘People Aren’t Going To Forget What’s Been Said, And How They’ve Been Made To Feel’ 

Some final resources and supports from us at Diverse Educators:

by Hannah Wilson