5 Ways to Imbed Inclusion and Diversity in EYFS Lessons
Written by Jess Gosling
An experienced international Early Years teacher, blogger and writer. She is currently writing a book for international teachers, 'Becoming an International Teacher'.
I am currently in my ninth year as an international teacher, and this article was written when I was working in a school with mostly local children in Taiwan. The problem I aimed to solve then was how to showcase and embed diversity and inclusion into our classroom environment.
Therefore, I have developed, and continue to develop here in Poland, a series of ways to bring up issues of diversity, gender, disability, and culture in a way that is relevant, informative, and engaging.
These are big topics for EYFS pupils but there are ways to bring them up organically alongside other areas of learning – often using texts to help naturally raise questions and discussions.
Cultural cues
Although in an international school, the children are from a similar ethnicity and therefore notice differences often.
One example of this was when we viewed a speech over which the guest had a strong Spanish accent. A child remarked, ‘that sounds funny’, and laughed.
As a class, we talked through her view. I related the experience to my own, speaking Mandarin with my ‘funny’ accent. I asked in this case if they would laugh at me. The class was in agreement that they would not. We explored the child’s perception and reasons why, overall, we have accents when speaking another language. I encouraged them to instead think about how smart the speaker was using a different language than their own. We created parallels with their own experience, as bilingual learners.
Gender
We have had a few instances where we have challenged and discussed gender as a class.
A boy in my class expressed his love of ‘Frozen’ and the character of Elsa in particular. He frequently leapt up to sing ‘Let it go’. Gradually, other boys have begun to join him. In this context, however, initially, there were some giggles. We unpicked this reaction and talked about how some girls love ninjas and superheroes and does it matter. Reversing the context helped those children understand that we are free to like whatever we like.
In another situation, I was concerned when several of my children were remarking that a new member of my team was a ‘boy’ as she had very short hair. I could see that the staff member was a little upset by the comments, so I stopped the whole class and I asked them to turn and look at the staff member. We do a lot of work on feelings and it was clear that she was upset. The children who had made the comments paused and looked at the floor. In this instance, I asked the class whether calling out gender names as a joke was a nice thing to do. The class, and the particular children involved, decided as a collective it was not. This behaviour was not repeated.
Discussing individuals who have taken different pathways
Integrity forms part of our school’s ‘learner profile’. To develop their understanding of this concept, I showed a recording of ‘We will Rock You’ by Queen and their frontman, Freddie Mercury, to prompt a discussion about him.
I wanted to illustrate how being honest and true to yourself is as important as being honest to other people.
We looked at how he took a different path in life than what he was expected to do, to remain honest with his hopes and dreams as a musician. The children were incredibly engaged in both the music and his life story.
Recognising cultural differences
When texts are selected carefully, they can illustrate a diverse representation of cultures. This includes environments, rituals, clothing, and religions that differ from my students. Following a book share, we discuss any perceived differences and similarities, encouraging questions.
However, it is important these stories show children living around the world, often with similar experiences to the children. One example is ‘The Proudest Blue’ about a little girl’s first day at school experiencing at the same time her sister’s first day wearing a hijab.
The little girl, Faizah, feels so excited for her sister but instead, other children use harsh words which confuses Faizah.
The children are drawn into the book by the fabulous illustrations. They picked apart what was unkind about the situation but also why others’ may make these remarks. Often I find children are not sure why people would say cruel things to point out a difference. We discussed together how certain words can not only affect one individual (Faizah’s sister) but also ripples to others, who hear and see them.
Showing differences, such as disability, as part of the ‘norm’
Furthermore, I endeavour to show texts which show children and adults with disabilities. One such example is ‘Rumble in the Jungle’, which shows a child in a wheelchair. These messages are more discrete as it is not a central aspect of the book. Additionally, I don’t always point them out. As these differences have been already discussed early in the year, I want the children to recognise, as with different racial identities that diversity such as disability is commonplace and part of our lives.
Pride and Progress: Making Schools LGBT+ Inclusive Spaces
Written by Jo Brassington
Jo Brassington (they/them) is a former primary school teacher, the co-founder of Pride & Progress, and the co-author of Pride & Progress: Making Schools LGBT+ Inclusive Spaces. They work with schools, universities, and charities primarily around LGBT+ inclusion, trans awareness, and children's mental health.
‘Every person in a school community should be free to be them- selves, to feel seen, to feel safe, to feel supported, and to feel like they belong.’
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For a moment – close your eyes – and picture a school.
What did you see?
Maybe you saw classrooms, or hallways, or uniforms you hated wearing as a kid.
Maybe you saw your favourite teacher, or your least favourite teacher, or perhaps you saw yourself standing at the front of class as the teacher. Maybe, like Jo, your mind immediately pictured the full-chorus cafeteria scene from High School Musical… or, maybe not.
It doesn’t matter exactly what you pictured – the point is that everybody reading this book has a picture. Every person holds an image in their mind of what schools look like, perhaps even what they feel like. Most of us hold with that image judgements of what we believe schools should look like.
Where does this picture come from?
Each of our images are individual, and they come from our own interactions with schools. All of us have experiences in these educational spaces, which have shaped our perceptions and understanding of them. This is one of the reasons that conversations about education are often so contentious, because every person has buy-in to the discussion. Perhaps your experience is from when you navigated school yourself as a young person, more recently as a parent, or as a person who works in a school every day. Perhaps, if you’re an educator like us, it feels like you never really left school.
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Now, for another moment – close your eyes – and picture this time a school which is an LGBT+ inclusive space.
What do you see?
Please, take your time. Really try to imagine it. What would it look like for a school to be a diverse, equitable, and inclusive space for LGBT+ people? A safe space for all young people who occupy it, for their families, and for the adults who run it. Is the space you’re imagining now similar or different to the school you imagined earlier? Is it similar or different to the schools you experienced yourself as a young person? Is it similar or different to the schools you are helping to create now as an educator or parent?
Our guess is that you probably found the second school harder to imagine, right? You were all able to picture schools because of the reference points and direct experiences you have with them. But, when it comes to imagining an LGBT+ inclusive educational space, many of you won’t have these reference points, or direct experiences. This is because for most people reading this book, the system you were educated under was not LGBT+ inclusive. Whether you noticed it at the time or not, it’s likely your own education did not make space for LGBT+ people, or their stories. In fact, there was legislation in place to purposefully ensure that this community of people were not spoken about in schools.
So, when we asked you to imagine an inclusive school, what we were really asking was for you to reimagine. To take your experiences in a non-inclusive system and reimagine them. To take an educational history of silence and shame and reimagine it. To take your perceptions and ideas of what a school should look like and reimagine them for a better, more inclusive, future.
This reimagining is exactly what our new book aims to explore, and it all began in a tapas bar in Nottingham.
In the summer of 2020, as England emerged from the first of its COVID-19 lock- downs, the two of us sat together in the window of a tapas bar in Nottingham. It was during the period of time where we were all adjusting back to conversations in real life, and the realisation that people didn’t just exist from the shoulders up in a rectangle on zoom.
In fact, this was the first time we were meeting in person, although it felt as though we knew each other quite well. For a while we had been organising or hosting online events to discuss LGBT+ inclusive education with other teachers. Through the online events we had been involved in, and through Adam’s doctoral research at the time, we were beginning to hear incredible stories of educators who were quite powerfully reimagining their educational spaces to make them more inclusive. The difficulty was, as Jo put it that day over dinner, that these conversations were only ever heard by the few in attendance, and once these events were over, it felt like the conversations ended there.
We wanted a way to share these stories, to amplify these conversations, and to bring together the people who often felt like they were doing this work alone. It was over that dinner when Adam first floated the idea of a podcast. What if we recorded these conversations? What if we shared these stories? What if more people could hear about the amazing work these educators are doing to reimagine their schools? We both left that restaurant with these questions buzzing in our minds, until eventually, they became the bedrock of Pride & Progress.
When we launched the Pride & Progress podcast we did so with this statement:
‘For a while now, we have been organising events for LGBT+ educators and allies to discuss inclusive education. During these events, people shared powerful stories of pride, and of the progress being made in education. We want to share these stories, to amplify the voices of LGBT+ educators and cel- ebrate inclusion, progress, and the power of diversity.
We are living in a unique and pivotal moment for inclusive education. Now, for the first time ever, educators are strongly encouraged and enabled to make education, and our educational spaces, inclusive of LGBT+ lives. This requires a complete reimagining of what education could, and should, look like: an education that reflects the diverse society, allowing all people to see themselves and to feel they belong.
Join us as we amplify the voices of these LGBT+ educators and allies, share their stories of pride and progress, and celebrate the true power of diversity in education.’
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Since sharing that statement, we have curated a collection of conversations and stories from people who are all, in their own way, reimagining educational spaces to make them more LGBT+ inclusive. We have spoken to teachers, leaders, trainees, charity workers, authors, actors, and activists.
Each conversation has helped us to learn, to unlearn, and to reimagine. In our new book, Pride & Progress: Making Schools LGBT+ Inclusive Spaces, we pull on each of those conversations, stories, and lessons to help you to begin to develop the reference points and experiences needed to yourself begin reimagining schools as LGBT+ inclusive spaces.
From hours of conversation, we have drawn together ten themes that we think are the keys to reimagining educational spaces. In each chapter we combine the lived experience of our podcast guests, with theory and research, to explore what each theme looks like in theory, in practice, and in action, to create an essential guide for educators who want to make their educational spaces more LGBT+ inclusive.
Ultimately, the book explores how we can reimagine our educational spaces to ensure that every person in them feels free to be themselves, feels seen, feels safe, feels supported, and feels like they belong.
Sounds good, right? You can grab your copy at a discounted rate during Pride Month on the Sage Website. Find out more here:
AI: Ethics, Equity and Education
Written by Gemma Clare
Gemma is an experienced writer, specialising in education and child development. With a background as a former Inclusion Leader, Teacher, and SENCo, she is dedicated to sharing ideas that make a positive impact on the lives of children.
Maya sits down to do their homework. Instead of reaching for their textbooks, they turn to Artificial Intelligence (AI) to complete their research. Aiko sits down to assess their students. Instead of relying purely on their teacher-judgement and observation, he uses an AI-powered assessment tool.
AI provides an exciting opportunity for students and teachers to work in different ways and it’s becoming more established as a helpful tool in education. You can read numerous articles celebrating the benefits of AI for schools and colleges – as a tool for planning, assessment, personalised learning and more.
However, AI is presenting us with a new set of ethical issues. With concerns over bias, misinformation and unreliable sources, it’s become more important than ever for the education system to effectively teach pupils how to be critical of information.
The Bias Problem
Machine learning algorithms are only as unbiased as the data they are trained on, which means that they can perpetuate and even amplify biases in society. There are numerous examples of where AI bias has caused both small and large-scale discriminatory practices.
Take for example COMPAS, a tool used to predict whether criminals will re-offend, which wrongly predicted that black defendants were nearly twice as likely to do so as white defendants.
There’s also Tay, the Twitter bot from Microsoft that quickly became a sexist, racist and xenophobic holocaust denier after engaging with the public.
There are countless other examples, across healthcare, education, recruitment and more where machine-based bias has had a damaging effect on those with protected characteristics.
Think about how unchecked bias in AI technologies could impact the pupils in your school, and the wider influence this might have on society. For example, what would happen if an algorithm designed to predict student performance wrongly predicted that the black pupils in your class wouldn’t achieve as well as their white peers?
Misinformation
Another significant concern with AI is the prevalence of misinformation and false narratives. For example, despite scientific knowledge being used to train Galactica AI, ‘It spat out alarmingly plausible nonsense‘ such as incorrect summaries of research.
The increasingly popular ChatGPT-3 collates information from across the web, much of which is not factually accurate despite how assured it sounds in its delivery. It also seems to churn out multiple ‘sources’ which, when you look for them, simply don’t exist.
It’s now simple to create a very convincing narrative which is either partially or completely fabricated. This can be particularly problematic in the era of social media, where content can spread rapidly and without verification (either intentionally, or not).
Combine this with the flaws in bias and you can see how quickly AI can be at the forefront of disastrous consequences for equality and equity.
Take for example the case of ChatGPT-4 reinforcing sexist gender stereotypes when prompted to describe the education and career choices of a boy and a girl. In this example, the boy says “I don’t think I could handle all the creativity and emotion in the fine arts program.” and the girl replies that she can’t handle “all the technicalities and numbers in the engineering program”. Imagine your pupils using these tools to study and taking the answers as fact – reinforcing harmful narratives.
So, What Does This Mean for Educators?
You may be thinking, ‘these are problems for the developers of AI to solve, what have I got to do with this?’ and of course, developers need to be actively addressing these concerns. However, until every piece of AI technology is held accountable against rigorous ethical standards, these damaging flaws will remain, and we need to be aware of our own role within this.
Many of our pupils will be users of AI technology, both at home and in school. They’ll be accessing information and learning in a completely different way to previous generations. Educators play a vital role in preparing pupils for their future – and their future now includes AI technology.
As educators, we can empower our pupils to make informed decisions based on what they read and listen to. We have the opportunity to teach them to evaluate the credibility of sources and question information. Pupils can be explicitly taught to recognise and challenge biases when they encounter them and to understand the signs of unreliable sources, such as an over-reliance on anecdotal evidence.
Of course, teaching pupils to be critical of all information available to them is important, not just AI-generated content. With the prevalence of targeted advertising and propaganda circling the internet, it’s also important to teach pupils how to recognise the agendas of the content they encounter. This includes being able to identify political or commercial interests that may influence the information presented to them.
One way to achieve this is to teach pupils to identify language techniques, such as loaded language or euphemisms, that may reveal a hidden agenda. This can be particularly useful when analysing news articles or opinion pieces, where the author’s bias can be subtle but powerfully influential. By understanding how language can be used to manipulate readers, pupils can become more critical and discerning consumers of digital content.
This is an important conversation to be having in the education space right now. The ability to critically analyse the trustworthiness of content and separate fact from fiction is becoming an increasingly essential skill. If we’re not preparing the next generation of young people for this, we risk further aggregation of societal polarisation and inequality.
Educators have a unique opportunity and power to help young people to navigate the problems generated by new AI technology.
The next question is, are we adequately equipped to meet this challenge?
LGBT+ Inclusion for Catholics
Written by George White
George White is an experienced teacher of RE and a Diversity & Inclusion Lead at a Catholic secondary school in Leicester. He holds a BA in Philosophy and Theology from Heythrop College, an MA in Global Ethics and Human Values from King’s College London and a Secondary PGCE in Religious Studies from the University of Cambridge. As an openly trans and Catholic educator, he has delivered conferences on LGBT+ Inclusion in Catholic Schools to the NEU as an LGBT+ rep for the East Midlands, Schools Inclusion Alliance, ASCL and more.
The official teaching of the Catholic Church, found in the Catechism, states that ‘[LGBT+ People] are to be accepted with sensitivity, compassion and respect. Any form of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.’
One of the greatest privileges I have had in the last 12 months came from my role as one of the committee members at Quest, the charity aimed at LGBTI Catholics and their families providing pastoral support. In the summer term of last year, we hosted an online conference titled ‘LGBT+ Inclusion in Catholic Schools’ with Fr James Martin SJ who has always been a vocal advocate for the LGBT+ community despite the vast number of threats he receives online. In spite of that, he has received commendation from Pope Francis for his ministry towards LGBT+ Catholics when he said, ‘I pray for you and your work’ in a letter received in 2023 and prior to that Pope Francis thanked him for his ‘pastoral zeal and ability to be close to people with the closeness Jesus had’ in reference to his LGBT+ ministry. I was able to interview Father James Martin SJ in a conversation that lasted the best part of one hour and thirty minutes in which time he gave several helpful ways in which schools – and all Catholics – can be more inclusive of the LGBT+ community. I was set with my questions and after the interview has finished, I tried to process this into some simple tips that anyone might be able to take away from the session. I have settled on the following three, some of which have even been picked up by the Holy Father in the last few months.
Firstly, as Catholic educators and ministers, we are invited to listen to the stories and experiences of the LGBT+ community. In particular, we are invited to listen to the language that the community uses to describe ourselves and our stories. Pope Francis is the first Pope to say the word ‘gay’ instead of the outdated phrase in the catechism ‘homosexual’. When we listen to the stories of others, we are more easily enabled to accept with compassion, sensitivity and respect. Pope Francis encourages us to reach out to those on the peripheries – and very often – LGBT+ people can feel as though they are there. In the school resources provided by each diocese for Synod 21-23, pupils are asked the question, ‘who are the people who feel excluded and left out of the church?’ In my experience, lots of pupils labelled the LGBT+ community amongst others. From what we have seen of the synod responses, the contributions of LGBT+ people and women have been recorded, visibly – perhaps most obviously included for the first time in the history of the Church. I invite my fellow educators to recognise the language they are using in schools; use the preferred names of trans pupils, use ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ instead of ‘homosexual’ and invite LGBT+ Catholics to tell their story to pupils and staff. Reprint lanyard cards with pronouns and new photos for pupils who come out. Use LGBT+ people and symbols in marketing material. I was fortunate enough to be selected to be in a campaign for the Department for Education’s ‘Get into Teaching campaign where I spoke openly about being a transgender and Catholic teacher of Religious Education. These visible signs help pupils and staff who are LGBT+ to know that they are welcome and accepted, as church teaching says that we should be.
Secondly, there are many opportunities in the academic calendar that are fitting for both Catholics and the LGBT+ community. Fr James Martin SJ spoke about meeting young people where they are, accompanying them and celebrating their journey in life with them. For example, he has written that Catholics can absolutely celebrate Pride month, providing the focus is on human dignity. There are many ways to celebrate and/or remember the LGBT+ community throughout the year. For example, in my own diocese, we hosted a mass with the intention of remembering ‘Transgender Day of Remembrance’ on November 20th. This is a day where we remember those who have lost their life due to their transgender identity; whether by murder or suicide. We pray for the souls of the departed and also pray for an end to the persecution that they may have faced which led to their death. We wrote bidding prayers with this in mind and came together to remember this event with trans people and allies in our community. In addition, you may choose to look at material that goes out in February which is LGBT+ History Month. We wrote prayers for our morning registration in which we included the scripture from Psalm 139, ‘I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made’ and we invited the school to come together for an end to LGBT+ persecution around the world. This kind of education helps us to prevent discrimination which might be directed towards the LGBT+ community especially from a religious perspective.
Finally, and perhaps the most obvious way to help contribute to the avoidance of persecution, we are called to stand up for the legal rights of our LGBT+ communities and relationships around the world. Pope Francis recently publicly spoke about the great injustice in several countries in the world who give a prison sentence or death penalty to those who are LGBT+. Prior to this, the Pope has advocated for legal same sex unions saying that LGBT+ couples have a right to be protected as families. This is perhaps a little harder for us to easily translate into life at school but not impossible. For a start, we can use clips of Pope Francis talking about these things to educate pupils on the realities of the world and what this means for LGBT+ people. We can also use it to guides our policy writing. As published by the Catholic Education Service in 2018 ‘Made in God’s Image’ we should deal with homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying the same way we do other discriminatory bullying. Our policies should clearly state that these types of behaviours will be treated in the same way as racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. If we do not treat homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in the same way, then we are guilty of breaking the law. Policies (such as those around uniform/make up and behaviour) should be gender neutral so that they apply to all students fairly.
The conversations I have had around LGBT+ Inclusion have led more generally to a review of the way in which we talk about diversity, equality and inclusion for all in our school. We host two ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ weeks a year where we have sessions from outside visitors as well as students sharing with their peers on things like race, faith, gender identity, sexual orientation, mental health, neurodiversity and the intersectional nature of lots of these characteristics. It has helped us to reassess the way in which we raise awareness to and celebrate our own diversity as a Catholic school community. We were commended in our recent Ofsted inspection as being an ‘inclusive’ school and we now have a dedicated staff and pupil group working towards our initiative to celebrate all human dignity in our community and ensure that everyone has a place – and more importantly a voice – at our table. We are guided by the principles of Catholic Social Teaching; solidarity, common good, participation and, of course, human dignity.
Reducing barriers to inclusion by casting a wide net
Written by Mahlon Evans-Sinclair
Mahlon Evans-Sinclair is an experienced educator with extensive participation in the fields of learning, professional & personal development, and EDI (Equity, Diversity and Inclusion).
Recently, I updated some guidance on the ‘use of pronouns’ as part of a wider report writing set of guidelines.
From the outset, I’ll say that I didn’t like the singular focus being placed on pronouns. Given that it’s an agitator for many, it felt like it was getting in the way of a wider message about how to write for a document that’s official in nature, but also personal in content. Additionally, the wording gave off a ‘need to know’ basis about any change/accommodation needed for the child in this regard. The twin issues for me in this are that (1) at a school-wide level, it requires the ‘push for assistance’ button to be pressed before ‘support’ can be given and (2) it can lead to a reactive ‘when prompted to’ attitude from teaching staff, with relation to promoting good practice of inclusion as default across the board.
So I changed the wording from a focus on pronouns to a wider acknowledgement to ‘Inclusive Language’ and in doing so, I added the following points:
- Inclusive language is affirming of all students, regardless of identity marker. (It reduces anxiety and barriers associated with identity presentation and supports feeling respected, understood and represented).
- [With regards to gender] Use of gendered terms are perfectly appropriate in many contexts (such as report writing) and don’t need to be consistently avoided, however consideration to use inclusive terms is encouraged across all interactions with students.
- Where a request has been made by both student and parent/guardian to use only the student’s name or [different] pronoun, [this will be communicated] directly.
In updating the guidance, there were a few things I wanted to contextualise, so separate from the document I gave further framing:
- Firstly, we should be working to reduce any barrier of inclusion related to accessing the feeling of being part of/belonging in a space.
- Thinking about it from the famously used and adapted ‘equality/equity’ image, we should be working to remove the fence completely (inclusion/liberation), rather than suggesting that we will treat everyone equally unless there has been a request made by the person facing the greatest barrier for an equitable ‘accommodation’.
- Furthermore, it’s understood that it’s not the responsibility of the person facing the oppression to educate others about it, so if we were to take that into account in this case, being inclusive in our language from the start takes the burden off of students having to ‘out’ themselves in highly visible and potentially unsafe way to feel validated in their identity.
- Finally, (in this case), moving the conversation away from being specifically on gender and reactive in its nature, we have the opportunity to move it to being about being ‘Intentional, Individual and Inclusive’ that both affirms the purpose of the space as well as those who are part of it.
Building Belonging in Primary Schools with Human Values
Written by Sarah Pengelly
Sarah has taught in London Primary schools for 12 years specialising in Literacy and PSHE, studied for an MA Educational Psychotherapy and previously worked at the BBC. For the past 5 years, she has been working with non-profit charity, Human Values Foundation, to develop a new values-led PSHE programme called The Big Think
Laying the Foundations of DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion)
The Big Think (TBT) is a PSHE programme for ages 5 to 11 which explores human relationships through the lens of 5 BIG human values (Peace, Love, Truth, Responsibility and Community) and develops 5 BIG Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) skills. Our holistic approach uses Silent Sitting Meditations for Self-Management, Real World stories for Social Awareness skills, Values Inquiry for Responsible Decision-making skills, The BIG Feelings Compass for Self-Awareness skills and a range of safe dialogue practices to build Relationship Skills.
The purpose of TBT is to build Belonging in all pupils and staff because we know that a stronger sense of Belonging in pupils leads to higher performance in all areas (see OECD SEL Report – Beyond Academic Learning 2021)
But when working with Primary schools to embed a whole-school PSHE approach, we are regularly faced with this pressing question from Early Years practitioners: ‘But what about us?’
We will always collaborate, trial, model and adapt our resources for 4-year-olds and younger. But this just isn’t good enough. If we truly want to create a climate of inclusion, equity and celebrated diversity – where EVERYONE (pupils AND staff) feels a strong sense of Belonging – then we must lay the foundations of DEI with the whole school community and start with more serious intentions, and with evidence-based practice, in those precious Early Years.
To this end, we have recently started collaborating with a range of Early Years settings such as The Mulberry House School in West London and Exhall Cedars Infant, Nursery and Pre-school in Coventry, to start together at the beginning and build Belonging in the Early Years from ages 2 to 7.
We are all human first
Human Values work well in all settings and with all ages simply because we are all human and when bringing together groups of people of any age and in any context, this is a powerfully inclusive way to begin. Introducing The Big Think to any school starts with a Community Values Dialogue – a 90-minute circle discussion with 30 invited participants representing the school community (school leaders, teachers, governors, support staff, caregivers, community and faith leaders and most importantly – pupils who are often members of the school council). This will naturally look quite different in different schools and can be face-to-face (always our choice!) or virtual (see case study examples and photographs on the full blog post link below).
Building Belonging in Early Years Settings
The Head Teacher at The Mulberry House School, Victoria Playford, leads with the vision: ‘Born curious, live curious, stay curious’. A prep school in West Hampstead for ages 2 to 7, she wanted to bring to life their PSHE curriculum through their school values and ensure key social and emotional learning skills were being developed throughout the school.
Their Community Values Dialogue involved school council pupils aged from 4 to 7 (including the Minister for Community who was 7!) and offered the chance for very young children to have a voice and part to play in shaping how the school values would influence their PSHE curriculum. Each class has a basket of special animals that bring to life the school values in their everyday learning (e.g. Empathy Elephant, Mindful Meerkat, Resilient Water Bear, Participating Penguin and Meditative Macaque) and these Special Animals became the essence of our work with such young children. A 6-year-old at The Mulberry House School chose to connect Empathy Elephant with the BIG 5 Value of Love ‘because Empathy is about learning to love everyone for who they are’.
Each very young person was able to choose a special animal to link to a core BIG 5 Value and speak about the life skills they would need to show this value in action. Together we created a safe space of non-judgement where everyone could join in with courage, listen with curiosity and respect all ideas. Pupils didn’t have to agree with their peers, teachers or caregivers, and could move the animals around to try out a range of opinions and see which ideas were a best-fit for themselves and their school. A 4-year-old chose to connect the BIG 5 Value of Responsibility with the school’s Resilient Water Bear ‘because it’s my job to ask for help if I need it and this is being resilient’.
During the final check-out of the session, in which everyone is able to share a key idea they will take away and act upon, all adults expressed surprise at the depth of understanding about human values that the very young children were able to demonstrate during the session and the collaborative and inclusive way they were able to make responsible decisions together. We could all see that our youngest humans already know how to live life as natural ambassadors for DEI – we just need to protect safe spaces for them to practise these innate values and skills.
Exhall Cedars Infant, Nursery and Pre-school in Coventry is a vastly different context serving an area of high deprivation. However, it is laying the very same foundations as The Mulberry House School. Headteacher Sharon Hillyard and PSHE Lead Bex Episcopo were keen to build Belonging in their pupils aged from 2 to 7 through self-regulation and oracy skills. They knew that if their children had time to understand themselves more deeply and were able to label their feelings and talk about them, they would feel a stronger sense of Belonging and be able to access learning more readily. Exhall Cedar Infants also use special animals to represent the values (Rex the Resilient Fox, Rory the Respectful Rabbit, Kai the Kind Deer, Nuala the Nurturing Owl, Hadwyn the Honest Hedgehog).
During the Staff Workshop, Early Years teachers shared their experiences of very young pupils who struggled to belong as their communication and language skills were the most underdeveloped they had ever seen – with many arriving unable to make the sounds for animals. For a host of complex reasons, the pandemic, coupled with rising poverty, have had a marked impact on the ability of pupils to feel they belong at school.
In response to this national need, our new Early Years resources will focus on developing Self-Regulation and Oracy skills. Early Years children and staff deserve access to high quality evidence-based resources to support them in the vital work they do in establishing strong foundations on which to build learning and belonging for life. We can’t wait to get started.
See full blog post with photographs and case study examples:
Getting to the Heart of Inclusion and Belonging
Written by Jennifer Johnson
As a parent, a former educator, an entrepreneur and a passionate change-maker, Jennifer is on a mission to empower young people to be their best selves to create a better world. She has an M.A. in Education in Curriculum, Teaching and Organisational Learning.
Common sense tells us that inclusion initiatives cannot thrive in environments where people are disconnected, have little sense of belonging and are struggling with their well-being. Today, principals are tasked with creating healthy and supportive environments where all stakeholders including teachers, students, staff, families can thrive – all at a time when we are still recovering from the erosion of the social fabric in our schools and communities.
The reality we are all accepting is we are not going back to “normal” anytime soon. Further, the complex issues in our systems cannot be remedied with quick fixes; and, on a school level, principals are not able to tackle such formidable issues using traditional approaches alone. The struggles of the past two years have led to notable increases in everything from mental health issues to bullying and hate crimes – a spectrum of symptoms with seemingly related root causes. These indications are no doubt a result of the unprecedented levels of uncertainty, prolonged interruptions to interpersonal interaction, diminished opportunities for extra-curricular activities, an absence of routine and ritual, and the subsequent loss of a sense of purpose, meaningful connection, and engagement for young people.
However, one of the gifts of the past two years has been the collective interest in taking a closer look at what is at the heart of inclusion and belonging. In order to provide schools with foundational support for critical conversations around inclusion, we need to examine the subtle interplay between well-being and identity, and how they contribute to feeling a sense of inclusion and belonging. Since launching Captains & Poets in schools in 2019 we have seen time and again that they are inextricably intertwined.
Dr. Helen Street, honorary associate professor in the graduate school of education at The University of Western Australia and chair of Positive Schools has introduced the concept of Contextual Wellbeing: “a state of health, a happiness and positive engagement in learning that arises from membership of an equitable, inclusive and cohesive school environment. (2016) In her book Contextual Wellbeing – Creating Positive Schools from the Inside Out, she highlights the relationship between the individual and the environment. “Rather than, ‘How can we improve the wellbeing of young people in our schools?’ perhaps we should be asking, ‘How can we improve equity, creativity and cohesion?’” (2018)
The challenge of creating more inclusive schools is we cannot promote inclusion without first addressing the fundamental human need of connection. This includes connection to self, connection to others, and connection to the world around us. We need to acknowledge that everyone has universal needs of physical, mental, and emotional safety that need to be met before we can connect. We also need to recognize where our systems and behaviours are in direct opposition to the very norms we are trying to reinforce.
Well-being does not happen in a vacuum. It is largely a social experience as well-being and connection have a reciprocal relationship. When we are positively engaged in an environment, we are more likely to have a healthy sense of well-being. Likewise, when we are feeling supported around our well-being, we are more likely to engage in the world and explore who we are in positive ways. One supports and reinforces the other.
When we put a well-being lens on current school priorities around Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), we can begin to understand the challenges we face in making progress on our objectives. The changes we are trying to make in schools to support a more inclusive environment are directly impacted by the collective state of well-being and vice versa. Both students and educators are struggling with mental health issues in unprecedented ways and most principals will tell you that resilience and well-being are at an all-time low. We need to provide a safe space to explore these needs first. Our individual needs being met are then, in turn, closely mirrored in our collective sense of well-being. Street goes further to stress the importance of context when looking at well-being. Sometimes well-being is about expressing negative emotions and identifying what is not working for us. More than ever, we need to create conditions for this to happen in schools.
A similar interplay is seen in the development of a healthy sense of identity. Identity is a result of the complex and ongoing dynamic between what is inside of us yearning to be expressed, what opportunities and/or barriers are present in our environment, how we present ourselves in the world, and how the world responds to us. At any given point in our lives, we are both solo agents and co-creators in every social interaction. We can see this demonstrated in how we each express who we are in different contexts (work, home, the community, etc.) based on the roles we play, our own needs, motivations and aspirations, the expectations of us, the environment and the underlying needs and dynamics of the group.
It becomes increasingly clear that the development of identity and well-being are not entirely separate constructs. Case in point, the rise of trauma-informed approaches illuminates the interplay between lived experience, our sense of identity in the world, our general well-being, and our ability to express ourselves fully and healthily in different social contexts. It follows that inclusion initiatives should not be mutually exclusive from those of well-being. Otherwise, we are presenting schools with the insurmountable challenge of tackling complex issues through a compartmentalized lens. What is needed more than ever is an integrated approach; and the fact is we are all wired for it.
According to Dr. Dan Siegel, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute, the mind is both embodied and relational. It includes what happens in the whole-body experience as well as how we interact with people and more broadly our world. Siegel’s research in interpersonal biology demonstrates that well-being comes from a state of ‘integration’ whereby we create harmony of our parts within us and extend this relationally by respecting this process in others. With this mindful lens, we can inquire into and honour what is going on inside of us while extending the same to others. By achieving harmony within first we are better able to have empathy for others. We can be attuned to differences in perspective and experience and at the same time ‘link’ to them with compassion. The mind enables us, at once, to hold space for ourselves and others. Well-being can then be described as an integrated self or way of being in the world. This integration of embodied and relational aspects of our experiences then leads to the ability to form deeper relationships that create space for vulnerability, and inspire connection, caring and the desire to help others. Is this not the formula for inclusion?
Looking through this integrated lens, we can begin to understand why taking a purely educational approach to critical DEI conversations is limited. We engage advocacy groups to deliver workshops and keynotes to illuminate the lived experiences of others and inspire us to open our minds to create greater understanding. We resonate with their stories, and we leave inspired only for our institutions to go back to business as usual on Monday. What we aren’t tapping into is the sense of connection that is surfaced in those moments. Without the ability to sustain this connection, our efforts wane and our impact erodes. Until the next year when the cycle repeats.
DEI initiatives aren’t just a top-down initiative and certainly should not be a box-ticking exercise, especially with the limited resources and energy on hand right now. Perhaps what we have been missing all along is that the desire for connection is a free and abundant resource at our disposal. We need to make a shift from informational approaches to inclusion to transformational ones that anchor in our hearts and weave into how we engage each day. Building and then sustaining this bridge between self and others is where we fail. The reality is inclusiveness begins on an individual level. As a result, it is essential we find ways to address and engage those in the room, their own perceived sense of identity and their readiness to connect.
True connection begins from a place of moment-to-moment awareness where we hone and develop who we are in the world, while simultaneously transforming the relationships around us. We can all reap the benefits of living more authentically and cultivating greater connection by leveraging a deeper, broader sense of self in everything we do. At the heart of inclusion initiatives is fostering connection to self while honouring a sense of connection across our differences. The first step we need to take is toward ourselves.
The emergence of self-awareness in human development is both a curse and a gift. It yields the curse of self-consciousness, which inhibits us from being who we are in the moment. But it also gives the gift of self-leadership, which empowers us to make choices about who we want to be in the moment and how we want to show up in the world. Self-awareness enables us to live more fully into our potential – and to support others in doing the same. We all remember those first moments in our young life when we suddenly became self-conscious. We received a subtle or not so subtle cue from our environment that there were aspects of ourselves that weren’t valued or didn’t belong. In that moment, we became fragmented. Our well-being AND our identity were directly impacted. Take a minute to reflect on those defining moments for yourself and who you would be if you had instead received the message that all parts of you matter and are worthy of being seen. How did those defining moments impact who you became in that situation and your happiness over the long-term?
We spend our lives on a journey back to wholeness to reclaim ourselves. We yearn for environments that allow us to find comfort in our own skin and encourage us to be our best, fullest selves. In education, we talk about this in terms of enabling students to reach their full potential, but this is often diminished to academic and strengths-based approaches. What gets missed is the whole child – who we are in all our complexity – as well as how our surrounding social contexts impact us on an individual level. Street reminds us in her book that:
’Flourishing’ is an interplay between our best individual selves and our best environment. This means happiness and success are far more than individual pursuits, or even individual responsibilities. Rather, lasting happiness develops when we form healthy connections in a social context that supports and nurtures us to become the best we can be.
When young people are given opportunities to explore and express who they are and to pursue what is important to them in a safe environment, it results in a healthy sense of identity AND well-being. As educators, we need to be mindful of our responses to students and what messages we are sending about who they are, how much they matter, and what is valued or not valued in them. There are many ways in which we tell students not to bring their full selves. We ask them to get along and when they don’t fit in or retreat from the group we move on with the business of the day. We ask them to conform to rules that have been established presumably to bring cohesion and harmony and when they step outside these lines, we exclude them. Our systems and behaviours are often contradictory to the very inclusive norms we are trying to reinforce. Being in an environment we perceive as safe and supportive of our basic human needs gives us permission to develop an authentic sense of identity. This is key to feeling a sense of connection and belonging.
Inclusion is not an end game and, as a result, the risk of fatigue from existing approaches is high. Instead, it is an ongoing process of intra and inter-personal discovery and dialogue that continues to take us deeper into ourselves, supporting and enabling social change through connection and seeing the we alongside the me. If the human experience is fundamentally about coming back to self again and again, then the journey to self is lifelong. At the core of this journey is self-awareness and the ability to ongoingly connect with the world in new and meaningful ways that have a positive impact on everyone.
So how do we make an integrated approach more accessible in the day-to-day interactions of schools? Educators need foundational strategies to support their own self-awareness in order to support young people in connecting with their own inner experience of identity and well-being. If self-awareness is the path to inclusion, we need to be more present to our role in critical conversations at hand, how the curriculum is delivered, the way we address incidents in the schoolyard, and how we engage with all school stakeholders. And we need to empower the same embodied and relational process with students. Perhaps the greatest opportunity at hand is to find ways to create transformation in our schools starting with kids themselves.
Captains & Poets was created to give students a sense of agency in this process of positively contributing to the social context around them. The premise of the program is that there is a unique Captain and Poet in each of us who, in partnership, enable us to be our best, most authentic selves – and to embrace others in the same spirit. While a simple concept, these archetypes give us deep and ready access to key aspects of who we are and the state we are in. Introducing the Captain and the Poet also provides a neutral language that moves beyond gender and race to the human experience of struggling and striving, creating and thriving to be who we are meant to be.
When we expand our ability to view ourselves, we are better able to see the full human expression in others. This gets us closer to an ‘integrated way of being’ in the world. The message we need to send to educators and students alike is they are whole, resourceful beings who have everything they need inside of them to thrive and that they help create inclusive environments by tuning into their own responses and needs with compassion and curiosity. When we are better able to understand ourselves, we are better able to relate deeply with others.
The phrase we use to help young people embrace and celebrate their uniqueness is, “We are all the same because we are all different.” We all have needs. We all want to be seen, to connect, and to matter. We all have a Captain and Poet inside of us ready to help us be fully expressed in the world. Today, we need Captains and Poets everywhere. Perhaps now is a critical time in education to call upon our collective Poets to hold space for ourselves and others on this journey, and to inspire our collective Captains to create safe spaces that empower us all.
Faith is too often seen as a barrier to LGBT+ inclusion, so we’re launching new resources to change this
Written by Amy Ashenden
Director of Comms and Media/Interim CEO, Just Like Us, the LGBT+ young people’s charity.
As the new Interim Chief Executive of Just Like Us, my aim this year is to ensure more schools than ever have the tools they need to support their LGBT+ young people.
For several years now, School Diversity Week has been celebrated by so many incredible educators across the UK, showing young people that being LGBT+ is nothing to be ashamed of. Last summer, more than 5,000 primary and secondary schools took part. This year, 26-30 June, I believe it’s vital that schools with intersecting communities have the resources they need to celebrate School Diversity Week.
From faith schools to Welsh-speaking communities and primary schools, Just Like Us will be providing new sets of resources that cater specifically to the educators that need tailored LGBT+ inclusion tools the most. When half of young people (48%) tell us that their school hasn’t given them positive messaging about being LGBT+, it’s clear to me that we have a long way to go and that to change this, schools need the right kind of resources that speak to their individual ethos and community.
Our new independent research has found a third of teachers (30%) say faith has been a barrier to discussing LGBT+ topics in school. More than 7,000 UK teachers took part in our survey this February, revealing an indisputable need for resources that are both LGBT+ and faith inclusive.
That’s why we’ve launched a new series of faith and LGBT+ inclusive resources for Anglican, CofE, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim school communities. From primary assemblies to worksheets and videos featuring LGBT+ young people talking about their faiths, the resources are designed to give educators the tailored tools they need to celebrate School Diversity Week in a way that makes sense for their community. We have also worked in collaboration with LGBT+ faith-led organisations Keshet, Hidayah, One Body One Faith and Quest to develop these resources in a way that really speaks to the communities they’re designed to support.
In faith schools, the research found that 46% of teachers had previously found faith to be a barrier to talking about LGBT+ topics in the classroom, compared to 25% at non-faith schools. I believe it’s vital that we now provide the tools educators at faith schools need to support their young people who may be LGBT+ or have LGBT+ families.
Interestingly, just 3% of headteachers said that faith has always been a barrier to discussing LGBT+ topics.
A lack of LGBT+ inclusion in schools is so rarely about a lack of willingness but instead due to a historic lack of suitable resources that empower educators to get started on their journey. It’s also important that we remember that LGBT+ and faith communities are never totally separate – as you’ll see in the resources, faith is very important to many LGBT+ young people and to suggest that there’s no overlap just isn’t reality. You can absolutely be LGBT+ or an ally and belong to a faith – being Jewish and a lesbian, I know this reality well.
It’s also really important that we don’t erase the fantastic LGBT+ inclusion work that many faith schools are already doing with their pupils. St Stephen’s CofE Primary School in London is just one example of this. Nicola Collins, who works at the primary school, is a huge advocate for celebrating School Diversity Week and won our LGBT+ Inclusive Teacher of the Year award in 2022. She explained: “As a school, we feel passionate about challenging stereotypes and homophobic language. As a result, the children in our school are well informed and accepting of all people no matter who they are!”
We hope that these new resources will be a gamechanger for schools with faith communities to celebrate School Diversity Week this 26-30 June. We really welcome educators to get in touch with your feedback or any questions you might have about making LGBT+ topics faith inclusive.
Acceptance: Still so much work to be done.
Written by Kelly Richens
Programme Director, BASCITT. BASCITT is proud to celebrate diversity and promote equality and inclusivity (see here)
Applying to train to teach is a daunting enough task; the whole construction of your personal statement and how it defines you, all of your work experience, your qualifications and who will be your referees. All wrapped up in the deep emotions of taking this huge step towards becoming a life-changer for young people.
If this wasn’t searching enough in terms of self-exploration and presenting yourself, there is a section that says ‘Criminal Record and Professional Misconduct’ in which an applicant can make any relevant declaration.
I had an email confirming an application in which there had been such a declaration. Imagine my horror when I opened the webpage to view the application and read: ‘I am unsure whether this is a safeguarding issue, however I feel it necessary to raise and protect myself and others from misunderstanding. I am transgender.’
A flood of emotions ensued: rage that this applicant had felt being transgender could be a safeguarding issue; sadness that whilst she wanted to share this information, she had chosen to include in in a section labelled ‘criminal record’; fear that there are groups of people without the psychological safety to just be who they are without recourse of judgement; and the smallest amount of pride that she had actually been brave to share at all.
So rather than my first conversation with this applicant about her potential qualities as a teacher, I had to have a difficult conversation of reassuring and coaching her that she was in safe hands with us. What a shame that we could not talk instantly about her joy of her subject, or why she was applying to us. Her being transgender was a huge distraction from this and that is wrong.
Whilst I reflect on this, and have since interviewed and offered a training place to this lovely individual, based on her merit, I am still left without an answer of how do we stop this happening again? Keep promoting inclusivity? Keep the courageous conversations going? Keep educating and keep that positive momentum going on how we can continue to aim for a world in which an individual does not fear themselves being viewed through a judgmental lens? Instead a place where everyone can be celebrated for who they are and what they have to offer our pupils.
The Fight Against RSE
Written by Ian Timbrell
Ian is an education consultant and trainer, supporting schools develop their provision for LGBT+ pupils and their RSE curriculum. He has worked in education for 15 years; including as a class teacher and a deputy head teacher.
The cursory glance at social media and the internet suggests that UK RSE curricula include suggestions of bondage, is opposed by most people, is queering education and is a risk to safeguarding. But what is the truth behind this opposition?
The backlash
Broadly, objections can be categorised into three areas: secrecy around RSE; developmentally inappropriate materials; the inability to withdraw from lessons; and the ‘queering’ of education.
The secrecy around RSE
A common oppositional narrative is that schools refuse to show what materials they are using. This view essentially accuses all teachers of not safeguarding their children. We’re not asked to show all materials so why is RSE different? If schools were to publish every piece of planning and resource used, the workload would push an already overworked system to the brink of collapse. This is not to say that there is no transparency. Generally, schools will share this information upon request, or through parent consultations.
RSE is developmentally inappropriate
Opponents of RSE claim it contains messages of anal sex, bondage, pornography and self-stimulation at age 4-6. My son is 9 and I would be horrified if he learnt any of these at his age. But he’s not. Because none of it is in the RSE frameworks.
Proponents of this message often use excerpts of preparatory paperwork as evidence for inappropriate content. But these aren’t in the mandatory documents. As part of any curriculum design process, you look at a wide range of documents to find out everything that is out there. That doesn’t mean that Governments use them, or that you agree with them.
I am not saying that no school has ever used inappropriate materials, but critics fail to acknowledge that these mistakes are in the smallest percentage of schools and instead of banning RSE for all, the individual school should take the appropriate action to ensure appropriate nature of the materials they are using in lessons.
The inability to withdraw from lessons
In Wales, parents are not allowed to withdraw pupils from RSE lessons. Being told that we cannot withdraw our children from any areas of their life is bound to put some people’s heckles up. However, the reality is that this is the case for pretty much every other area of the curriculum. Schools would not allow withdrawal from English or Maths, so why should it be allowed from a framework that aims to develop healthy, happy people?
One of the reasons that withdrawing from all RSE lessons is not as simple as some would like you to think, is that effective RSE is primarily not delivered as ‘RSE lessons’. RSE encourages friendships and respect and so it is impossible to withdraw from any lesson that develops these attributes. What the parents here are generally saying is that they want them withdrawn from sex education and/or mentions of sexuality or gender. Withdrawing from RSE frameworks as a whole is impossible, but withdrawing from sections would be a logistical nightmare for schools and is not realistic.
The ‘Queering’ of Education
This phrase is fascinating, especially because it has no agreed universal meaning. Most opponents seem to be using it as a phrase to suggest that ‘Queer Theory’ is now underpinning education. They are conflating the true meaning of Queer Theory with conspiracy theories to suggest that there is collusion in education and health to somehow convert children to become LGBT+. This is rooted in LGBTphobia and is not founded on anything but discrimination and panic culture.
The real reasons for the backlash
The most obvious and largest group appear to be transphobic and homophobic. The reality is that up to 10% of the population are LGBTQ+ and if we do not ever discuss these things, this whole section of society will grow up wondering why they feel different. But also by deliberately not mentioning LGBTQ+ people, we are saying that they don’t exist, which is phobic in and of itself. Inclusion of LGBTQ+ people on displays, in books and in lessons is not going to turn anyone LGBTQ+, but it will make our world a more inclusive and tolerant place.
An argument opponents to RSE also use is that they don’t want sex talked about to three-year-olds. But sex doesn’t need to be mentioned. At that age, it’s about realising that there are different families and challenging gender stereotypes.
The final reason that I will talk about here is religion. A minority use religion as a reason for their children not to be ‘exposed’ to LGBT+ or gender discussions. I follow a number of LGBTQ religious individuals and organisations, and I can tell you that religion does not spread hate, people do.
Conclusion
In 2021, 5 parents took the Welsh Government to court to ban RSE. Unsurprisingly, they lost the court case as many of the disproved views from above were put forward as ‘evidence’.
The fact is, no matter what change happens in schools, there are always opponents and critics. But when you couple inevitable bemoaners with homophobia and transphobia, there was bound to be pushback. But RSE is key to making the UK an inclusive country and the vast majority of us know that it is the right thing to do and trust the teachers to do the best by their children.