We support teachers, curriculum/ subject/ phase leaders, and senior leaders responsible for curriculum design to diversify the curriculum in your school.

We deliver individual workshops and talks – virtually and face to face – but due to demand we are now launching a programme of curated sessions to support you on your journey to make your curriculum more inclusive and more representative.

This programme will support you in raising consciousness, developing confidence and building competence in how to diversify your curriculum design, delivery and resources.

Our 6-part programme will support you throughout an academic year, through a half-termly virtual session.

The programme content is detailed below:

Session 1: Curriculum Vision
To be able to rationalise and clarify the direction of diversity in the curriculum work to ensure that there is shared vision and unified purpose in schools.

Session 2: Curriculum Thinking
To ensure that the curriculum work is rooted in sound curriculum principles that align with a school’s vision, mission and values.

Intersessional Activity 1:
Review your curriculum policy and your subject’s curriculum intent statement through the lens of the 9 protected characteristics and through the lens of your school’s values.

Session 3: Curriculum Evaluation
To explore practical mechanisms for curriculum evaluation, considering change models and implementation strategies.

Session 4: Curriculum Adaptation
To explore methods of adapting the curriculum to ensure that it is meaningfully diverse within a social justice framework.

Intersessional Activity 2:
Review your curriculum across subjects in light of the previous two sessions and identify strengths and areas for development to feed into an implementation plan for adaptation of the curriculum.

Session 5: Curriculum Conversations
To create safe spaces in which to authentically activate student and parent voice to gauge how the curriculum is received.

Session 6: Curriculum Controversies
To explore ‘controversies’ in creating a diverse curriculum to be able to manage the emotional wake of the work.

Intersessional Activity 3:
Create a 1 page/ 500 word report summarising how you have applied your learning and evaluating the impact from these sessions to demonstrate how you are leading the diverse curriculum in your context.

We support schools and trusts in reflecting on how truly inclusive they are as workplaces.

We deliver individual workshops and talks – virtually and face to face – but due to demand we are now launching a programme of curated sessions to support you on your journey to make your school a more inclusive workplace for all of your employees.

This programme will support you in raising consciousness, developing confidence and building competence in how to review policies, practices and processes to ensure that inclusion is at the core of your employer’s promise to your staff.

We support schools in empowering their staff to be empowered to have courageous conversations in the workplace.

What is a Courageous Conversation?
In courageous conversations, whether in the context of performance appraisal, mentoring, or coaching, individuals are encouraged to express their views openly and truthfully, rather than defensively or with the purpose of laying blame. Integral to courageous conversations is an openness to learn.

What is an example of a Courageous Conversation
Typical examples include handling conflict, confronting a colleague, expressing an unpopular idea on a team, asking for a favour, saying no to a request for a favour, asking for a raise, or trying to have a conversation with someone who is avoiding you. Research shows that many women find such “courageous conversations” challenging.

What to Expect
Expect to be challenged in a safe and supportive way as we navigate how to set up and hold the conversations that we avoid. We will unpack the themes of authenticity, vulnerability and courage, considering what this means for our leadership style.

What You Will Learn
We will raise our consciousness, increase our confidence and develop our competence in how we show up as leaders. We will develop deep listening skills, we will explore difficult topics, and we will practise the art of simultaneously caring and challenging others.

What You Will Gain
You will develop new skills. You will establish critical friends. You will be more confident in tackling those courageous conversations with your colleagues.

We can deliver face to face and virtually, for HR conferences, trust training events and individual teams.

We support a number of ECF providers and teaching school hubs with their DEI provision and strategy to support their ECTs in Year 1 and 2 of their induction into the profession.

We organise conferences, hold virtual events, deliver talks and curate webinar series to explore key themes around diversity, equity and inclusion.

We facilitate core DEI training for whole training cohorts, of primary and secondary ECTs, for them, their mentors, and the team from the provider.

In courageous conversations, whether in the context of performance appraisal, mentoring, or coaching, individuals are encouraged to express their views openly and truthfully, rather than defensively or with the purpose of laying blame. Integral to courageous conversations is an openness to learn.

Typical examples include handling conflict, confronting a colleague, expressing an unpopular idea on a team, asking for a favour, saying no to a request for a favour, asking for a raise, or trying to have a conversation with someone who is avoiding you. Research shows that many women find such “courageous conversations” challenging.

According to the work of Susan Scott there are The Seven Principles of Fierce Conversations:

1. Master the courage to interrogate reality. Are your assumptions valid? Has anything changed? What is now required of you? Of others?
2. Come out from behind yourself into the conversation and make it real. When the conversation is real, change can occur before the conversation is over.
3. Be here, prepared to be nowhere else. Speak and listen as if this is the most important conversation you will ever have with this person.
4. Tackle your toughest challenge today. Identify and then confront the real obstacles in your path. Confrontation should be a search for the truth. Healthy relationships include both confrontation and appreciation.
5. Obey your instincts. During each conversation, listen for more than content. Listen for emotion and intent as well. Act on your instincts rather than passing them over for fear that you could be wrong or that you might offend.
6. Take responsibility for your emotional wake. For a leader there is no trivial comment. The conversation is not about the relationship; the conversation is the relationship. Learning to deliver the message without the load allows you to speak with clarity, conviction, and compassion.
7. Let silence do the heavy lifting. Talk with people, not at them. Memorable conversations include breathing space. Slow down the conversation so that insight can occur in the space between words.

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines microaggression as:
“A comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalised group (such as a racial minority)”.

The American National Institutes for Health states:
“Microaggressions are everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults – whether intentional or unintentional – that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to individuals based solely upon their marginalised group membership. Microaggressions repeat or affirm stereotypes about a minority group, and they tend to minimize the existence of discrimination or bias, intentional or not”.

References:

US Department of Health and Human Studies – Microaggressions.

Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life – Types and Impact of Microaggressions.

Dealing with Microaggressions can be time consuming and tiring if they are continually encountered. Microaggressions by their very nature may not be intentionally perpetrated. Therefore, allowing them to go unchallenged may lead to unintended negative learning and contribute to many feeling unwelcomed. For example, deciding where a person lives or works based on their appearance.