The first stage in developing an effective equality and diversity charter is to ask ourselves why.
Our trust serves communities in Leeds and Bradford. These include relatively affluent market towns and inner-city areas with some of the highest levels of deprivation in the country. The percentage ‘white British’ students in our schools varies from 81 per cent in one to less than 4 per cent in another.
These inequalities are repeated across society, and across the sector. That means a focus on equality and diversity is important in all our schools.
However, it’s arguably even more important in schools that serve communities which are unrepresentative of modern Britain’s rich diversity.
A bottom-up approach
As with all good initiatives, the development of our charter came from the bottom up.
The student leadership team from each of our schools (which includes representatives both primary and secondary phases) came together for a day to consider how their schools and their trust could best support equality and celebrate diversity.
It was their idea to introduce a trust-wide charter to set out our commitment, ambitions and actions.
Our headteachers agreed that this would be a great idea. However, we knew we needed to secure engagement and ownership at all levels to ensure the charter made a real difference.
So our next step was to organise a professional learning twilight for all staff, including the central team. The event created an opportunity to deliver refresher EDI training and at the same time gather staff views about what the charter should include.
Staff approached the task with energy and enthusiasm. They generated plenty of ideas, which we found we could organise into six key areas for action: leadership, culture, curriculum, anti-bullying, equal opportunities and community engagement.
Ownership from the top
The charter then went through several redrafts as it was reviewed by school and trust leaders, always informed by students’ and staff’s suggestions.
Mindful not to make the document too long and/or unreadable, the final version provided a bullet-point list of actions under each of the six headings. These ensured that there was enough detail to ‘bring to life’ what each commitment would entail in the trust’s day-to-day operation.
The next step was to engage governors and trustees, which we did at our annual trust strategy event. This brings together senior leaders, local governors, trustees and members to review and celebrate the work of the trust over the previous 12 months and consider next steps in the trust’s development.
Once more, we took the opportunity this presented to deliver EDI refresher training to those involved in governance. Then, we engaged them with the charter, and in particular the actions that were most relevant to their roles.
For example, it is their responsibility to ensure policies and practices systematically take account of equality and diversity and that school improvement planning prioritise this facet of our work.
The charter also requires governors to consider how recruitment and development provide equality of opportunity, and to explore how we can achieve our commitment to developing systems to monitor and address under-representation.
We have lift off
Then, we turned our attention to the launch. For this, we went back to our students and arranged an event where members of each school’s choir came together to sing and celebrate the commitments set out in the charter.
Parents, carers and members of the wider community were invited, and press releases and social media posts shared our ambition.
Our challenge now is to keep the charter alive so that it doesn’t become just a piece of paper, but makes a real difference to our communities. This is helped in no small part by the sense of ownership our broad consultation process has generated.
To support this, we have built in regular opportunities to remind every one of their role and responsibilities in implementing the charter and set out milestones for identifying and reviewing our progress.
From the initial why came our who, what, when and how. These may differ for each where, but as belonging re-takes its place at the heart of our educational discourse nationally, there can be no doubt that it is necessary work for all of us.
Your thoughts