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.
Embracing Equity
Written by Ben Hobbis
Teacher, Middle Leader and DSL. Founder of EdConnect and StepUpEd Networks.
Equity (noun) – the quality of being fair and impartial.
This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is embracing equity. I have to admit over five years ago, if you asked me what this word meant, I could not have told you. I was uneducated and naïve in this area. I had to educate myself.
Five years ago, I would have said I was a champion for equality. I had done this in my previous roles in retail, particularly when it came to recruiting. In my last store, I had a very diverse team across the nine protected characteristics across the Equality Act. And this recruitment was not tokenistic, we had a fantastic team who were brilliant at what they did, and their diversity all brought something to the table. What I did not realise at that time was that I actually was a champion for equity, without knowing it. I was also an ally, but I did not recognise this either.
I believe I am a real champion for equity. This comes down to my allyship. As a white, able bodied, straight male, I have a duty to champion, advocate and push for equity. I see this in my day job as a teacher. As the champion for those 30 children who I serve, I must be the one to challenge decision making that directly impacts my children, decisions that affect them both negatively and positively. As a leader in a school, I must champion equity of opportunity. For example, as Personal Development Leader, one of the first things I enacted was to remove the Head Boy and Head Girl positions, they were limiting because of sex. We now have a mixture of students involved with our student leadership and pupil voice systems. And I am pleased to say in a boy heavy school, we have a large group of girls leading from the front and I am so proud to watch and champion them. As the leader of a grassroots network, I am constantly challenging colleagues in terms of the diversity of event line ups and who our intended audience is.
I recognise, I have not had it as hard as my female counterparts (but also my counterparts who are BAME, LGBTQ+ and so on). Therefore, I must embrace equity in my life and my work. We should all be striving to create an equitable society and not allow equity to be ignored. Embrace equity!
The Time is Now
Written by Matthew Savage
Former international school Principal, proud father of two transgender adult children, Associate Consultant with LSC Education, and founder of #themonalisaeffect.
I write this as a father, and as an educator. I am angry, and I am scared.
Occasionally, partly as an experiment, I will share simultaneously on Facebook a) an innocuous post with a smiling photo of me; and b) a ‘call to action’ in support of my two trans children in an alarmingly transphobic world. The former consistently attracts lots of engagement, and the latter virtually none. My inference, corroborated by conversations I have had, is that a majority of people do not want even to enter what they see as a polarised and toxic debate.
This seems to me to be a victory for transphobia, and the ‘gender-critical’ right wing: that it is now widely accepted that we need to debate this at all, when any debate over the human rights of any other protected characteristic would be widely deemed abhorrent. Therefore, whilst some would argue that now is the time for calm debate, and for pause and reflection, this post is none of these. For I would argue that there is also a time for advocacy and allyship, and for activism and action. And the time is now.
I was young enough to experience the acidic effect of Section 28 as a teenager. Growing up in the 1980s, I was oblivious of the identities and expressions of the LGBTQ+ community: in part, this was due to a cowardly and shameful lack of representation in the media, sport and public life, and, in part, to the ignorance and fear of the blinkered society which tried to bring me up; but it was also due to the inability and incapacity of educators even to talk about those lives, even as so many of those same lives were being decimated by a new, deadly virus.
This violent clause was repealed in Scotland in 2000 (it seems the nation I now call home was ever ahead of its southern neighbours), as one of the earliest pieces of legislation enacted by the nascent Scottish parliament and, eventually, by Westminster in 2003. Peace had defeated violence, and love had vanquished hate. However, violence and hate, it seems, had not been beaten, but had merely lurked, waiting for their renaissance; and a new Section 28 lies on the horizon.
At the time of writing this, just over 205,000 people have signed a parliamentary petition calling for the government to “Remove LGBT content from the Relationships Education curriculum”, and this is now awaiting a date for parliamentary debate. Meanwhile, just over only 92,000 people have signed a counter-petition calling for that same government not to do so, and the government is only obliged to ‘respond’.
That is 120% more hatred than love, and 120% more violence than peace.
There is no debate, when it comes to deciding who has human rights and who does not. There is no calm when some of the most oppressed, attacked and marginalised children, young people and adults in our society are under attack. There is no reflection, when the facts and the statistics instantly destroy the hatred, on the too few occasions they are shared. And there is no pause, when children’s and young people’s very lives are in danger.
I write this as a father, and as an educator. I am angry, and I am scared.
Please give your voice to peace and love, both through this petition, and through literally any other means possible.
The time is now.
“New year, new me!”
Written by Andrew McGeehan
Andrew (he/him) is a trainer/consultant based in Singapore that loves talking about anything DEIJ related and/or cats!
A phrase that all of us hear a lot every year right around this time. I know I have said it (and non-ironically!). This year, I’m asking myself (and all of you reading this) – what will actually be new? What am I planning to do differently this year? How am I planning to spend my time, energy, resources, and money? How will I commit to uplifting others, pushing for justice & equity in the world, and naming hurtful behaviour in my community?
And in the end, will the new me take the time to reflect, look inward, and identify the ways in which I also contribute to marginalisation and oppression?
Every time a new year comes, regardless of the calendar that we use to mark it, it is a time for renewal. There is that surge of energy that comes with seeing the whole next year laid out before us and the possibilities fly through our minds. We imagine who we might become, who we might meet, what new opportunities we will have, and a whole new life can flash before our eyes. But before we know it, we are back to work, back in our lives, back to the same old routines we always had, and within a month, we are left wistfully wondering where that excitement for the new year went.
I will challenge you today to not let that happen!
I challenge you to make empathetic, inclusive, and justice-oriented commitments to yourself and others and to follow through on them.
I challenge you to question yourself constantly.
I challenge you to have conversations you’ve never had before that are difficult and nuanced.
I challenge myself too.
I am a queer white cisgender able-bodied man doing diversity, inclusion, and equity work in Asia. There is a lot for me to continuously unpack about my cultural background, my perceptions of reality, my understandings of privilege and power. I am constantly learning and interrogating what it means to be a white person and a cisgender man and talking about these issues. I’m clarifying for myself where and what my role should be.
If you are interested in solidarity work, allyship, advancing racial & gender & orientation & disability & religious (& more!) equity, and seeing the world take more rapid steps towards equity and justice, I’ll invite you to make these commitments along with me.
1.Do the internal work – When we want to work towards justice and equity, our interest and passion for the topics aren’t enough. There is a lot that we need to accept about ourselves, socialisations to try and unlearn, and reflection to be had. I often work with folks who prefer to skip this step – in trainings, someone might say “Can you just tell me what we should be doing to make our organisation more inclusive?” And yes, I could do that. But without any understanding of our own internal worlds, we won’t be effective advocates for justice.
What do I mean by this? Spend time uncovering your own biases, accept that we are all brought up to believe negative stereotypes about people who are different than us, analyse your social circles, identify who you gravitate towards to at work and who you avoid and why. We don’t need to be perfect people in order to engage in justice & equity work, but we do need to be aware of what we are walking into the space with.
2. PLEASE move beyond awareness – Awareness is over. There is so much information out there via mass media, pop culture, research, memoirs, peoples’ lived experiences, surveys, etc etc etc! Awareness isn’t a bad thing; but for many people and organisations, it’s the only thing. Awareness without action doesn’t change anything. Having a work event to celebrate International Women’s Day and share information on the wage gap is fine – but it ultimately rings hollow if there isn’t follow up within the organisation to actually reduce/eliminate it within the organisation.
3. Name harm with your friends, family, & colleagues – It’s time to start doing the hard work and talking about these issues with the people closest to us (or at least those we spend a lot of time with). Especially for those of us with a lot of privilege, it’s necessary to name the racism, heterosexism, ableism, sexism and other harms that we see within our families and friends. Naming it and discussing it doesn’t have to be a big conflict, nor does it mean that the person called out is a bad person. We all do things that are hurtful at times, and if we aren’t held accountable for it, we won’t be able to understand and change our behaviour.
It might be easy to start with something simple, like saying “I don’t think comments like that about gay men are appropriate” or “I don’t think jokes about immigrants are funny.” If feeling generous, we may take more time to explain how the actions might harm us or make us feel or provide more resources for them to do their own learning.
4. Commit to making lasting change – Systemic -isms persist because the systems haven’t changed yet. There is tons of value in changing our internal worlds and educating our friends and family. It’s also extremely powerful to work to change systems. In many cases, our capacity to change a system will be in the workplace. We can advocate for policy changes, required trainings, targets for inclusive leadership. These changes can be difficult to make and sometimes run the risk of seeming “boring”, but they create change that lasts beyond our tenure in any organisation. For instance, an organisation celebrating Trans Day of Remembrance and encouraging staff to share their pronouns is great, but does that same organisation have trans-inclusive and affirming healthcare?
If you are part of an Employee Resource Group/Network Group, this is a great space to start considering what institutional changes need to happen in order to create an environment of affirmation and comfort for all. An easy way to start is by reviewing company policies – is the language gender-inclusive? What is the parental leave policy? Are there flexible arrangements? How are neurodiverse staff supported? Does insurance cover mental health?
5. Read & learn about it from those who know (and believe in their knowledge of their own experiences) – There are many amazing activist writers, artists, musicians, and filmmakers out there. Learn about them, learn from them, and buy their products! If you are a majority race person and you don’t know about racism in your country/region, there is surely a book about it written by someone who experiences that racism daily- read it with an open mind. If you want to understand better the experience of a person who lives with a disability, find research that talks about the workplace challenges folks face.
And when you read, listen, and watch about these experiences, believe them. Folks with marginalised identities know what they have experienced. Sometimes we want to dismiss what we hear because it makes us uncomfortable or because we know that we have participated in similar hurtful behaviours. Lean into that discomfort and try to identify where it is coming from without being defensive. I know this is hard and I still struggle with this sometimes, but it is so necessary. Just pause and ask yourself “what about this is making me feel this way?”
Some Singapore-based starting points:
- “What We Inherit: Growing Up Indian” – True stories of Indian women’s experiences in Singapore
- “Queer Singapore: Illiberal Citizenship & Mediate Cultures” – Highlights the complexity of queer existence in Singapore
- https://transformativejusticecollective.org/ — Learn more about the work being done to shift justice away from the death penalty and towards transformation
6. Expand your social circles – So much of my own social justice learning has been through relationships I’ve built with people. I was very lucky to go to graduate school with an extremely diverse cohort and build wonderful relationships across race, gender, religion, and more. Our familiarity with issues brings us greater empathy, and many people care more about issues that affect someone they know. Inclusive access in a city may have never mattered to someone, until their partner becomes wheelchair bound and then they will notice all the ways in which cities are not built for folks with physical disabilities or mobility challenges.
As a word of caution, I do not advocate expanding your social circle in a way that is tokenistic (i.e., I should find a gay friend! I don’t have one of those!). But think about ways that you can expand who you interact with, through social media, connections from other friends, or volunteering. Take a look at who you already know- what is the makeup of the people you spend time with? During my trainings, I always ask people to consider who they go to lunch with at work and who they see other people go to lunch with. My personal experience in Singapore is that many foreigners take lunch together and many locals take lunch together. Could there be unconscious bias at play? Could people be more comfortable sticking only with what is familiar? I don’t have an answer, but it is worth investigating what this looks like for us individually and see what patterns we observe.
7. Try, fail, apologise, and try again – Whenever we engage in work related to justice and equity, we will invariably make mistakes. When someone tells you that you have hurt them, or done something that is racist/sexist/homophobic/etc, apologise for causing harm. If possible, have a conversation to make sure that you understand what it is that was hurtful (but don’t force the other person to share this with you). Think about how you can do better next time and maybe reflect on the experience with a trusted friend.
Maybe you want to become more comfortable naming microaggressions at work – you won’t do it right all the time. But you will be able to refine your technique and enhance your comfort level as you practice. As with any skill, we need to practice it to get better at it. Working towards justice and equity are no different. Do your best and approach this work with a lack of ego and the knowledge that you will make mistakes and that is ok.
8. Understand what you have to gain – Greater justice, equity, and inclusion in the world benefits everyone. People with privilege often feel like they are “losing” something, but that is not the case. There is enough equality to go around. Understand that advocating for gender equity creates new opportunities for people of all genders, including men. We are not diminished when others have the same opportunities that we do; but we are diminished when others are held down by systemic oppression.
Along with this, we have to know and understand our own “why.” Why are you doing this work? Why do you care? I often see organisations and individuals who are doing D&I work because it is seen as trendy or required in the contemporary era. This is a surface level connection to the work that won’t go beyond some token improvements or remain mired in awareness-building. Think for yourself about what your personal commitment is and act from there.
I am pledging myself to the above as well. I am continuously interrogating my place as a White American man in Asia talking about diversity, inclusion, equity and justice. I reflect on how privileged I am to be able to be hired by companies to do this work. I mess up in my trainings and apologise to participants when I’ve cause harm. I work to continue finding research and pedagogies that do not have a US-centric lens and are context-specific to Asia & Singapore. I can and will continue to refine and nuance my approach towards this necessary work.
It’s a journey that we are all on. I hope that you will come along with me in 2023 and consider which of the above items might be part of the “new you.”
The issue with “high expectations”
Written by IncludEd Diagnostics
IncludED Diagnostics support local authorities, academy trusts, and individual schools with their work to increase inclusion, reduce suspensions and reduce exclusions. More information is available at www.includeddiagnostics.co.uk
If you are sanctioned for failing to meet an “expectation”, it is, in fact, a “condition”.
For a long time I have been interested in why deprivation and poverty are associated not just with academic outcomes, but with behavioural outcomes, and on my journey to understand this I came across a researcher called Sendhil Mullainathan and his work on the concept of scarcity. In his view, scarcity is a much more wide-ranging concept than poverty (an arbitrary threshold of income), i.e. we can have a scarcity of time, health, family support, relationships, cultural input, etc. – all of which can impact our outcomes. In describing the impact of scarcity he uses the analogy of packing into a smaller suitcase, and inspired by the #IncludEd2023 conference today, I’d like to start with this.
Two pupils are going away for a week, one packing into a large suitcase and one into a smaller suitcase. The suitcases can be seen as strict metaphors for disposable income (family income in this example), or in a broader way as availability of lots of different resources… but they both articulate a difference in experience.
The pupil with a smaller suitcase (i.e. scarcer resources) has a smaller capacity for items, therefore…
- They are forced to operate with more conditions
Their items have to be folded smaller and packed away better than the pupil with a large suitcase. They have to make more “either/or” decisions on what to pack, whereas the pupil with the larger suitcase can pack more with less efficiency.
Could you list all the conditions / expectations children must meet to engage fully in your school? When we put pressure on parents/carers to immediately provide a new pair of school shoes, do we consider the scarcity that so many are living with? Less time because of childcare or multiple jobs, the cost and time of travel to get the shoes, the cost of the shoes, and what is the “or”? What isn’t being bought, what isn’t time being invested into?
- Decisions have to be better!
Not only does the pupil packing into the smaller suitcase have to make better, not equal but better, decisions because there are more conditions, but any errors they make will cost more. If both forget their phone chargers, one may buy a new charger with relative ease, one may not. If packing is done badly and an item gets damaged, the same applies.
Living in scarcity means a “lack of slack” for mistakes – we all make mistakes but they don’t cost us or impact us all equally. There is very little flexibility for this within most school behaviour systems as the consequences appear superficially the same – the same detention time is given. The actual impact – socially, emotionally, educationally – may vary widely.
- Triggering reminders of scarcity means we have less “bandwidth” for the process [not our inherent intelligence / cognitive capacity but how much of it is temporarily available]
There is research to support this – using food-related words in word-searches prompted dieters to be significantly slower in finding the following words – and the implications are profound. The implications are that the concentration, focus, and attention needed to actually pack the suitcase is more limited for those affected by scarcity when that has been consciously triggered (i.e. I wish I had a bigger suitcase like other people!) Wouldn’t that make this pupil more likely to make mistakes? Ones which cost more?
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What prompted me to write about this today was hearing from two speakers who have experienced the care system. Consider the conditions we place on children in school, then consider the size of the suitcase a child in care is packing, i.e. the multiple levels of scarcity they may be experiencing. We have conditions on appearance and equipment – coat, black socks, bag, colour of pen, PE kit, pencil-case, etc. We have conditions on behaviour – a consistent requirement to accept adult authority and direction, regulate level of activity, attention, and emotional response. Even peers come with conditions for integration – they could be clothing, games consoles, cultural references, a similar capacity to spend time together outside of school. Some of these may feel impossible for a young person to achieve… Lemn Sissay OBE described it so viscerally today when he recalled “the smell of people with families”.
The speaker before Lemn was Jade Barnett, which is a name you will come across again in the future. Her educational journey travelled via two managed moves, a pupil referral unit, a move into care then a move into a care home at the opposite end of the country. Jade is a model of the most positive outcomes – today she held five hundred minds in her hand purely because she speaks with such intelligence, articulacy and power. But, as a child, she was forced into a situation where she was packing into a small suitcase. And the schooling system places yet more conditions on her, and others like her. Nowhere in her speech did she imply that those conditions were helpful; where many, such as Lemn, feel like they don’t belong already, the consequences of failure to meet these “expectations”/conditions must only reinforce that perception. At their least useful, they make engagement and access to education harder for some of the most vulnerable.
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To return to more typical language of schooling, high expectations can no longer be a cover for just describing a very large number of conditions. And we need to stop painting such conditions as supportive to young people by their mere presence. That is to confuse equality of expectations/conditions with equity, but that isn’t equity at all. In reality, we may be both ignoring the smaller suitcase and expecting more of the child who is packing it.
High expectations of academic progress are crucial to all children fulfilling their potential, and these are genuinely “expectations” because they come without sanction. Without them children may not be taught to their full potential. Alongside that, adult understanding of the difficulties that some children face is a critical factor in making sure children belong and can thrive. For school and education leaders, it is worth considering what is within your control and sphere of influence to mitigate the impact of scarcity. Is the pupil premium grant being used to best effect? Also, please do consider when thinking about the rewards and sanctions in your school how do you make things fair for those living with scarcity?
Two Years On: Where are we now?
Written by Hana Malik
Hana Malik is currently an Associate Senior Leader, Head of English with a passion for social justice, diversity and equity.
We decided, after the murder of George Floyd in the US, that we wanted our educational organisation to join the movement against racism and we turned our school towards the necessary work it took to be anti-racist. Now, two years on, I find myself asking where we are and what we’ve achieved, if we’ve made any positive changes to the lives of our staff and students and if our DEI work has moved us forward.
We have heard it before, and it is key to achieving success: DEI work is circular – it is evolving and the work is never ‘done’. It is vital therefore to reflect on progress and ensure the evolutions keep happening.
Ella Washington, an organisational psychologist and founder and CEO of Elevate Solutions (a DEI strategy firm), helps to clarify the ‘five stages of DEI maturity’ and how we might evaluate the work we are doing. The five stages are: aware, compliant, tactical, integrated and sustainable. She explains this in her upcoming book as well as for the Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2022/11/the-five-stages-of-dei-maturity She has also spoken about the three Ps of DEI evaluation.
Purpose
The most important place to begin is with the why, especially because there is (not yet anyway) no standard of DEI in an educational setting against which you can measure your organisation. No teacher standards (although meeting the needs of learners is often cited as DEI adjacent) and certainly no Ofsted criteria under Quality of Education or Personal Development. I consider our school and think about where we were in 2020. Why did we join the movement? Did everyone know where we were going and why we were going there? Did everyone feel safe in joining the journey?
There were great successes in this area, especially in 2020 and 2021. Now however I must admit that our commitment to DEI has become something of an ‘extra’ improvement priority. Not because we don’t believe in DEI, but because, like all schools, the reality of exams, Ofsted, sky-high bills, mean that we are juggling countless balls and it has been hard to hold on firmly to the DEI one. Most important perhaps is the question of whether our why has changed and if as leaders we can be courageous enough to acknowledge that and realign the vision.
Pitfalls
This can be difficult, but honest reflections and consideration of barriers and pitfalls will contribute to successful and sustained DEI work. Were leaders vulnerable and open about why we’d started this journey thereafter building confidence and trust in the staff body? Did staff have a secure and shared language about DEI? Were changes manageable and sustained?
We’ve fallen into some predictable pitfalls. The one that is arguably most challenging is that we have stopped communicating our vision and goals for DEI. Is it still on our school improvement plan? Yes. Do we all know why it’s there and what change might entail? No. Secondly, the work of DEI cannot fall to one person. A DEI champion is great, but what happens when they leave? We know how important middle leaders are in delivering change, and it is in that room we can ensure that DEI is sustained.
Progress
The all-important ‘this is progress’ stage. The curriculum, the outcomes, the senior leadership team. We want to see progress across all elements of our organisation. So, what does progress look like? What does it look like in the short term and the long term? How can we find out where we are now and where we need to go next?
We do have a more diverse and representative SLT. We do have a more inclusive recruitment process from blind CVs to diverse panels. Our students do learn about a wide range of topics; from kabaddi in PE to reframing migration. There are boxes we can tick now, that is true. But we know our work is far from ‘done’. We will need to return to the question of what progress looks like for us and go from there. If schools are microcosms of the society we live in, we need to think carefully about what DEI in a socially just and equitable world looks like. We can then build the change we want to see.
Diversity and inclusion: what do students think?
Written by Lulu Frisson
Lulu Frisson is a 15-year-old secondary school student from Birmingham.
“But who benefits from all this stuff on inclusion and diversity at school? Do students actually care?”
My dad leans over the table, eyes bright, his questions hanging in the air between us. Both of my parents are teachers and occasionally conversations like these – about anti-discrimination work within education – will crop up at the family dinner table. Truthfully, I find it fascinating. I tick a lot of diversity boxes myself as a biracial, bisexual, autistic teen girl. I often think about my identity and how schools can be more accepting of students from minority groups, but conversations with my parents about diversity in education make me realise that there’s still a long way to go when it comes to creating inclusive learning environments.
I often think of the awful murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020 and the subsequent international Black Lives Matter protests as the sort of ‘explosive’ point for anti-discrimination work in schools and workplaces. In my mum’s primary school, the sudden heightened awareness around race within white spaces began igniting conversations around the lack of diversity in children’s books. In my own school, students began demanding change – to the curriculum, to the teaching staff, to the extracurricular clubs on offer – and we were largely listened to, encouraged to recognise and speak out against injustice. To answer my dad’s question – students undoubtedly cared about improving diversity and inclusion. And we absolutely do still care.
And yet the contrast between pupils’ anger about social injustice in summer 2020 and our current vocal demand for change is stark, and it’s something that needs to be addressed if schools wish to continue making meaningful progress with diversity and inclusion. Our reaction to the horrifying events of that summer was loud, passionate and angry because being loud, passionate and angry is often the quickest way to drive change. Now, having seen some positive changes implemented in my own school – the creation of an annual Culture Week, for example, and the increased awareness around the texts we study – I think a lot of us have stopped talking about diversity and inclusion simply because we’ve come to believe that those changes may be the most our school is able or willing to make.
But schools can’t let the conversation die down. Students who are part of minority groups still experience discrimination regularly – so much so that I believe we’ve become somewhat de-sensitised to it. I’ve noticed that my classmates from minority groups often brush off or downplay personal incidences of discrimination, and it’s something I find myself doing too. If a teacher jokes about how ‘exotic’ I am, my immediate reaction is usually to laugh it off. If a classmate makes an ignorant comment about autism, or someone tells me that bisexuality does not exist, I tend to excuse them through a hopeful lens of forgiveness.
What this really shows it that there’s still a certain expectation for LGBTQ pupils and students of colour to extend endless grace and compassion to classmates or even teachers who offend us; from as young as primary school, we’re often told to ‘be the bigger person’ when it comes to conflict, or to stay quiet and not cause a fuss. As a result, a lot of comments we hear that would absolutely be considered discriminatory get unreported in schools, brushed off as insignificant or normalised – with inevitably damaging impacts on student mental health.
That’s why diversity and inclusion work within school is so important. I remember listening to an assembly about microaggressions and realising that it was okay to feel hurt and uncomfortable by comments a lot of us students have come to excuse as banter, curiosity or ignorance. The simple acknowledgement that discrimination exists in forms other than outright abuse was so impactful, and I left that assembly feeling like my identity, and the struggles I’ve faced surrounding it, are valid. My parents sometimes talk about how it is ultimately up to policy makers to improve our schools and the culture created in them. And whilst longer term national change towards promoting equality in education is incredibly important, I’d argue that smaller immediate actions towards inclusivity can be just as meaningful.
For students who use different pronouns, for example, inclusivity might mean having teachers who respect and actively try to use gender neutral language in their classrooms. For me personally as an autistic student, inclusivity has meant being able to access things like fidget toys and a time out card, and receiving pastoral support in school. More broadly as an LGBTQ biracial person, I’ve felt most included and safe in lessons that include perspectives and examples of people from all backgrounds. If a teacher uses a case study of a same sex couple in biology class, for example, I’ll know that they’re accepting of LGBTQ people, and by extension accepting of me. It may sound trivial, but it often really is small actions that make the biggest difference.
So yes, students do care about diversity and inclusion. We notice the changes being made – or lack thereof – to our schools more than we might let on. Many students from minority groups naturally care deeply about continuing and improving our work on inclusivity, but the truth is that everybody, staff and students alike, need to too. To have the ability to not care about inclusion is undeniably a privilege. To be able to think about diversity solely at times that suit you, to be aware of inequality only when it is pointed out, to be oblivious to the fact that you are amongst the majority in the spaces you occupy – these are privileges that people from marginalised communities are persistently denied.
So it is not enough for allies to say they do not see colour, do not care about sexuality or do not think about gender. And, to extend on that, it is not enough for schools to hear minority students’ struggles or uplift our voices only at times that are convenient. Regardless of whether it’s Black History Month, Pride Month or a time like the summer of 2020, schools need to continue to actively listen to students from marginalised communities and be receptive to our suggestions – not only to create more diverse learning environments, but safer ones, too. We do not have the ability to leave aspects of our identity behind when we come to school, and we shouldn’t have to, either.
Diverse Educators: A Manifesto - Book Review
Written by Madeleine Spink
Madeleine completed a PGCE in Citizenship at the IOE after studying at the University of York and Goldsmiths. Madeleine now teaches Sociology, PSHCE, Oracy and History at Langley Park School for Girls in Bromley.
Diverse Educators: A Manifesto is edited by Hannah Wilson and Bennie Kara, with contributions from over 100 educators, structured around the Equality Act 2010.
It starts with a quote from Maya Angelou that “diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.” The books format is best described as a tapestry. It is made up of ten chapters, one for each of the nine Protected Characteristics (Age; Disability; Gender Reassignment; Pregnancy and Maternity; Marriage and Civil Partnership; Race; Religion and Belief; Sex; Sexual Orientation) with a tenth chapter exploring intersectionality.
The book is collaboratively produced and mixes personal and professional experiences. Educators generously sharing their experiences and learning include primary and secondary teachers from all age groups, backgrounds and life experiences. The book develops the readers empathy to the diversity of educators, as well as the diversity of opinion of people within each protected characteristic. For example, the chapter on disability includes personal experience, the need for disability in RSE, practical tips to involve students in curriculum planning and data on the permanent exclusion rates for disabled students. It feature’s ACT’s own Lee Jerome on Intersectional Citizenship as a status, a feeling and a process. The chapter on Transgender inclusion is also insightful and talks about Lucy Meadows, whose death should not be forgotten by teachers who have followed her into the profession.
Deep questions are asked throughout, and the contributions informed my thinking about whose responsibility inclusion is, whose work it often ends up being and whether inclusion work is for the long term or ‘en vogue’. I would have loved to have seen a chapter talking about working class teachers existing in the middle class school environment, and how this identity intersects with the protected characteristics.
The variety of editing and writing styles did make the manifesto lack cohesion and feel inaccessible at times. The structure takes time to get used to, and can be navigated either by starting with the editors overview and selecting the sections that appeal to a particular interest, or by focussing on the key takeaways and ‘contributions’ to the manifesto at the end of each chapter. This changes depending on how the chapter has been edited, and some chapters are referenced while others lack referencing. It is a tapestry of a book, to capture such a variety of perspectives is a huge achievement, but not everything will appeal to everyone.
Diverse Educators is a book to dip in to, reference and use as a guide to practical steps that can be taken to inclusion. It would be a good choice for a staff book group and comes with a reading guide and questions. There’s a lot of ways this resource can be used and shape teaching, learning and the school environment.
Why Don’t We Talk About Intersectionality in Schools?
Written by Dr Jo Trevenna
Dr Jo Trevenna has over 20 years' experience of educational leadership from early years to post-graduate level. Her ongoing academic interests centre on Leadership and EEDI. Her company, Potential Education, offers leadership reviews, support and training and EEDI-focused school support.
There can’t be many of us still thinking that human identity is singular. Right? Aren’t we a combination of diverse characteristics that create and impact on our existence? Expectations and assumptions around combinations of characteristics are increasingly illuminated in societies, with light thrown on those who experience multiple discrimination and shade thrown on those who discriminate against those with different combinations of characteristics. The complexity around identity is foregrounded in explorations of intersectional discrimination. Yet intersectional disadvantage is not generally a focus for English schools.
Why?
Is it a lack of understanding and awareness or the lack of external accountability?
The Law
Critical awareness of the vulnerabilities faced by those with exact combinations of identity characteristics was first associated with the legal work of Kimberlé Crenshaw which looked into the discrimination experienced by African-American women in terms of ‘intersecting patterns of racism and sexism’ (Crenshaw 1991, p1243). Crenshaw asserted that anti-discrimination legislation in the United States did not actually protect African-American women because, when making legal claims against an employer, this particular group had to choose between a focus on either their race or gender, even though the discrimination they faced came at the ‘intersection’ of these two identity characteristics.
Section 14 of The Equality Act (2010) recognises the potential for discrimination pertaining to ‘combined discrimination: dual characteristics’ (Legislation.gov.uk 2010). The focus here is limited to direct discrimination against the combination of only two characteristics. More significantly, Section 14 has never, in fact, come into force. It just sits there in provisional status.
As it stands, therefore, the law does not adequately protect against intersectional discrimination and, in terms of English schools, there is no legal imperative to tackle intersectional discrimination.
Publicly Available Data
Published performance table data is hugely significant for schools. The first stage of the high profile ‘school and college performance measures’ website offers only a single-axis approach to pupil data. Some basic intersectional data is available on the ‘Explore Education Statistics’ section of the platform relating to ethnicity and disadvantage, disadvantage and gender, SEN and ethnicity. However, the data remains on cohort numbers and does not provide any information which may indicate the impact of those intersections on pupil academic performance, exclusions/suspensions and attendance. FOI requests can be made and the GOV.UK website also offers the facility for researchers through its new Grading and Admissions Data for England (GRADE) service. This service may be a significant step forward in terms of higher level transparency but it does not provide readily accessible data to the public on intersectional discrimination affecting pupils.
Data revealing the intersectional factors affecting pupils is available to school leaders and governors, local authorities and Ofsted via the ‘Analyse School Performance’ (ASP) secure access platform. Filtering mechanisms enable reports combining specific pupil characteristics, eg: boys with SEN, and scatterplot graphs make it relatively easy to identify patterns of underperformance because of key combinations of protected characteristics thereby highlighting potential impact of discrimination and flagging up need to address. Another school performance document is the Inspection Data Summary Report (IDSR), which is accessed on the secure ASP portal. The IDSR is a key document for Ofsted Inspectors when preparing to inspect a school and informs initial discussions with headteachers. Like the ASP tool, the IDSR does provide schools and Ofsted with a retrospective mini intersectional tool in its coding on scatterplots of the progress and attainment of pupils by binary gender classification and SEN status and deprivation status. However, there is no public access to this data.
To sum up: disadvantages experienced by pupils with specific combinations of identity characteristics in English schools are not readily flagged in publicly published school data. Perhaps Ofsted, which does have access to this anonymised intersectional data via the ASP and IDSR, has the potential to be the driving force in helping schools engage with intersectional discrimination.
Taking a sample of 68 Ofsted Section 5 inspection reports published in a six month period (not including those which inspected an already ‘Good’ school), there are only references to single-axis identity characteristics. In this sample, Ofsted, as the key inspection mechanism for schools, does not engage with the impact of intersectional discrimination on pupils. The lack of referencing in this sample of reports is not surprising given that Ofsted’s School Inspection Handbook only relates identity characteristics on a single-axis framework.
As it stands, then, there is no legal accountability, no easily accessible public data to enable transparent exploration of the impact on pupils and little Ofsted engagement with intersectional discrimination and disadvantage. Right now, without the external accountability structures, it is the choice of school leaders whether or not to adopt an intersectional approach to their schools. Given that most of us agree that identity has multiple components, it is surely time to explore how an intersectional approach can throw light on intersectional disadvantage and discrimination and therefore help schools to tackle it head on despite the lack of an external accountability framework.
Desire to study diverse drama and playwrights in schools not matched by current educational landscape
Written by Margaret Bartley
Editorial Director for Literary Drama at Bloomsbury. Since 2002 she has been the Publisher of the Arden Shakespeare and now has editorial responsibility for Bloomsbury's digital platform Drama Online, the Methuen Drama imprint, and the Arden Shakespeare. She is Bloomsbury’s representative on the Lit in Colour Advisory Board and sponsor of Bloomsbury Academic’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion working group.
90% of drama texts taught at GCSE and 96% at A Level English Literature are written by white playwrights
New research released today by Bloomsbury Publishing, through its Methuen Drama imprint and as part of its Lit in Colour programme, illustrates the popularity and contradiction of teaching drama texts for English Literature at GCSE and A Level in today’s secondary schools in England and Wales.
Drama (excluding Shakespeare) is not compulsory in the GCSE English Literature specification, yet 93% of teachers who responded to Bloomsbury’s survey choose to teach a drama text to a GCSE class. Under 2022 curriculum specifications, drama texts by white playwrights account for 90% of drama texts taught at GCSE and 96% at A Level English Literature. This contrasts with 93% of teachers who said they would like to see a more ethnically diverse range of writers offered by exam boards. This desire from teachers is met with student demand. Of the teachers surveyed, 65% said there was a demand from their students to study more ethnically diverse writers.
Launched in 2020 by Penguin Books UK, alongside race equality think tank The Runnymede Trust, the Lit in Colour campaign aims to support UK schools in diversifying the teaching of English and to increase students’ access to texts by writers of colour and from minority ethnic backgrounds.
Bloomsbury’s Methuen Drama imprint has a world-class play portfolio and playwright relationships that complement and expand on the original Lit in Colour campaign. The programme’s aim is to introduce new plays to the curriculum, offering students access to more diverse, representative and inclusive work, opening up the ways in which all drama texts can be studied, creating new ways to explore plays and contributing to wider discussion and representation in the classroom.
Other findings from the research illustrate the important role drama plays within English Literature at secondary school study:
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- There are currently just 2 drama set texts by Global Majority writers available at A Level English Literature
- With the right support and resources in place, 84% of respondents said they would be likely to choose a new drama text for GCSE English Literature
- We asked teachers about the support they need when teaching drama set texts: the top three resources listed were recordings of performances (67%), model student answers to exam questions (65%) and resources on social/cultural context (57%)
- 66% of survey respondents said they would like more support to teach texts that tackle issues relating to race or ethnicity
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- 0% of students answered an exam question on a play by a Global Majority writer in England in 2019*
- In England in 2019*, 79% of GCSE English Literature candidates answered an exam question on a drama text, 349,337 students (65%) answered a question on An Inspector Calls in 2019 assessments
Margaret Bartley, Editorial Director for Literary Drama at Bloomsbury, commented: “The landscape of teaching drama in English schools has remained largely unchanged. Our research shows that there is real appetite for change and that publishers, theatre makers, examiners and teachers need to work together to deliver change to the curriculum. If we empower teachers to switch texts with confidence, students can continue to benefit from the positive impact and influence of studying plays. In the future, those plays will better reflect the student cohort and ensure students see themselves represented in the texts they study. Bloomsbury is committed to playing our part in delivering this change through our proactive programme of new play text publishing, supported by the resources teachers and students need to study and enjoy them.”
Change is coming – what should the future look like?
Real change is coming. Just two years on from the Lit in Colour campaign, efforts are being made by all five major awarding bodies in England and Wales to diversify the set texts within both GCSE and A Level specifications for English and Drama. By 2025 English Literature students in England and Wales will have the option to choose from 10 new modern play texts by writers of colour at GCSE and A Level.
The importance of live performance
Drama can be more accessible than other genres and many enjoy the interactivity that the format brings. A 2015 curriculum change to English Literature removed the necessity for a student to watch a live production, leading to systemic changes in the teaching of drama texts as part of the English curriculum, which are difficult for teachers to counter.
Teaching drama as an experience through live performance is critical in the successful introduction of new plays. When diverse texts are performed in theatres and included on the school curriculum, more could be done to engage with the playwrights themselves. There needs to be more opportunity for playwrights to talk about their work and context, and for schools and teachers to engage with playwrights directly.
Having access to staged performances through services such as Bloomsbury’s Drama Online, which has collections of filmed live performances including those from the National Theatre and Shakespeare’s Globe, is vital to bringing teaching to life, inspiring debate and illustrating what the author or playwright is trying to convey.
Empowering teachers to take a different approach
The research shows a clear desire among teachers to expose pupils to a diverse range of literature, driven by the need to reflect the student cohort and ensure students see themselves represented in the texts they study. There is also a desire to share diversity of thinking and hear voices other than their own. Importantly, this needs to represent a variety of backgrounds and to portray a range of lived experiences including, but not limited to, race-related issues.
Introducing new play texts to the classroom is a big undertaking and requires time and energy from teachers who are already stretched and time-poor. It is clear that teaching a new text is a significant undertaking for teachers who need to create new schemes of work and lesson plans, and research the text’s critical and performance history. Research responses show that teachers prefer to refer to past papers and evidence of the approach taken in assessment for benchmarking their teaching plans. This understandably means teachers often choose to teach the familiar and reliable options with which they have had positive learning and exam outcomes in the past.
Giving teachers the tools they need will empower them to teach new texts and approaches with greater confidence, helping them achieve the success they want for their students.
Teachers also told us that they have more freedom at Key Stage 3 (KS3) to choose diverse texts, as the curriculum is not limited by exam specifications. Teachers can therefore introduce drama texts from diverse writers at KS3 and build confidence in the teaching of these texts, before being limited by exam specifications at higher key stages.
There is also an opportunity to teach the familiar set texts differently, while they remain on the syllabus, by reframing how they are taught. Alongside new texts from diverse writers, existing texts can be taught through a different lens that resonates more with today’s students, such as gender, identity or class. Given the predominance of plays like this, reframing the way established canonical texts are presented offers teachers and students enriching ways to engage with them alongside newer texts.
Methodology
This report draws on research from multiple sources: a quantitative survey, in-depth interviews, roundtable discussion and desk research. Participation was entirely voluntary. Research was carried out by independent research company Oriel Square Ltd and supported by Insightful Research. The online survey, carried out in June 2022, targeted teachers of GCSE English Literature in England and Wales. Of the 141 respondents, 16.3% identified as Black, Asian or of Multiple Ethnic background, compared to 10.4% of teachers in England. Interviews were conducted with a sample of four teachers, selected either because they were taking part in the Lit in Colour Pioneer Pilot programme, ran in partnership with Pearson Edexcel, or because they had responded to the survey and agreed to take part. As a response to the teacher research, Bloomsbury, the National Theatre and Open Drama UK hosted a roundtable discussion with stakeholders from publishers, awarding bodies, theatre organisations, and practitioners, authors and playwrights to discuss how the drama and theatre community could support schools with the teaching of diverse drama texts.
*2019 assessment data was used in the research as the most reliable data, as COVID-19 interrupted live exams data and 2022 data is just being published
Media enquiries: to Ginni Arnold, Head of Corporate Communications at Bloomsbury on ginni.arnold@bloomsbury.com or 07968730247.
Editors’ Notes
Bloomsbury English and Drama for Schools list includes:
- The popular Student Edition series and GCSE Student Editions and Guides featuring plays for more than 14 core set texts for GCSE and A Level English Literature and Drama such as Blood Brothers, A Doll’s House, DNA, The Crucible, and An Inspector Calls.
- The Arden Shakespeare Third series for A Level and beyond, and Arden Performance Editions for performance and study.
- The RSC Shakespeare series, including The RSC Shakespeare: Complete Works and 36 individual play editions.
- New Mermaids series for classic play editions including Doctor Faustus and The Duchess of Malfi.
- The ever-growing Plays for Young People series which offers age-appropriate plays by a diverse selection of contemporary playwrights for young people to perform and study.
Find out more at Bloomsbury.com/DramaForSchools and @MethuenDrama
About Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury is a leading independent publishing house, established in 1986, with authors who have won the Nobel, Pulitzer and Booker Prizes, and is the originating publisher and custodian of the Harry Potter series. Bloomsbury has offices in London, New York, New Delhi, Oxford and Sydney.
About Lit in Colour
Lit in Colour was launched by Penguin Random House and The Runnymede Trust in October 2020. The campaign aims to ensure English literature better reflects contemporary culture and society, to increase understanding around racial equality and to give students access to a diverse range of authors and books.
Lit in Colour published a major piece of research: https://litincolour.penguin.co.uk/ Diversity in Literature in English Schools in June 2021 which reviewed the current state of play in English Literature education and made practical recommendations for change, carried out by an independent team at Oxford University’s Department of Education.
Find more information at penguin.co.uk/litincolour and @PenguinUKBooks
About The Runnymede Trust
The Runnymede Trust is the UK’s leading independent race equality think tank. We generate intelligence to challenge race inequality in Britain through research, network building, leading debate, and policy engagement.
Runnymede is working to build a Britain in which all citizens and communities feel valued, enjoy equal opportunities, lead fulfilling lives, and share a common sense of belonging.
In order to effectively overcome racial inequality in our society, we believe that our democratic dialogue, policy, and practice, should all be based on reliable evidence from rigorous research and thorough analysis.
@RunnymedeTrust |runnymedetrust.org