A multi-academy trust is by nature a community of schools that includes children, parents, carers and staff from different backgrounds who come together with a shared vision for exceptional teaching and learning. Community is therefore a crucial value that underpins its successful running. It enables us to work together and harness different talents and perspectives to achieve the best possible opportunities and outcomes for pupils.
At LEO, community reflects our commitment to embracing and celebrating diversity in all we do. This ensures each member of our trust feels included and represented. As inclusion school development lead, I am often asked how a trust can champion equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) across its schools and embed this into teaching and learning. At the heart of our approach lies a practical strategy to build EDI into each of our school’s’ curriculum. Here are my six top tips to help school leaders ensure inclusion becomes an achievable and sustained goal.
Establish commitment
Embedding a commitment to EDI must stem from the trust culture. This EDI policy should be clearly stated in its mission, vision and values to create a strong and supportive culture of empathy and respect from the top down. For example, this could be a clear yet simple statement: “We are committed to embracing, celebrating and promoting EDI in the curriculum and beyond and supporting staff to achieve this vision”.
Complete a curriculum audit
Once your EDI policy is established, it’s important to evaluate the curriculum against your agreed measures for success, identify areas for improvement and agree next steps. INSET days provide an ideal opportunity for heads and subject leads to audit curriculum content and review classroom displays and resources, to ensure they reflect the diversity of the school and its community in all subjects.
Get it on the agenda
Appoint an EDI lead within each school who is responsible for monitoring the effectiveness of the policy in the curriculum and collaborating with colleagues to best support them. These leads can form a working party across the trust who can champion EDI and agree action plans and commitment in each school, to ensure consistency and a whole-team approach.
Empower staff with knowledge and resources
Your staff will undoubtedly be committed to honouring the diversity of the trust community in the curriculum. However, for many teachers the challenge sometimes is knowing how to properly instil EDI in the classroom. High-quality CPD is therefore essential to empower staff with the right knowledge and resources.
There are some brilliant free learning resources such as The Black Curriculum and Diversity Role Models which provide guidance and classroom techniques around topics such as anti-racism, anti-bullying and gender equality.
Create network groups
Establishing network groups that regularly meet to review and contribute to the EDI plan for the curriculum ensures accountability and that the policy is best serving school communities. Ideally, there will be network groups at pupil, parent, governor and trustee level to ensure everyone’s voice is heard.
Inclusive trust opportunities
In addition to a full audit of the curriculum, it’s important to consider the inclusivity of wider opportunities, celebrations and awareness dates relevant to each school. In fact, it’s a recommendation from the student commission on racial justice, whose 2022 report was published last week.
If one of your schools has a higher proportion of pupils and families from a certain ethnic background or culture, ensure the appropriate celebrations and holidays are respected. This may differ from school to school, so make sure this is regularly checked by EDI leads.
Equality, diversity and inclusion are key values that all schools should be reflecting and celebrating in the curriculum so that each pupil understands that they belong and have a valued place alongside their peers. And it is critical learning for pupils’ development into respectful and empathetic global citizens.
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