[Intro Music]

00:00:08:11 – 00:01:02:25
Hannah
Welcome to the Diverse Ed podcast. Diverse Educators is an intersectional community of educators who are passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion. Our vision: everyone is celebrated, in every classroom, in every school. Our mission: a collaborative community that celebrates the successes and amplifies the stories of diverse people. Our values: promoting acceptance, increasing visibility, encouraging celebration, creating belonging and enabling learning. In series one of the Diverse Ed podcast, we have ten episodes. In each episode our co-hosts, Nick Kitchener-Bentley and Yamina Bibi interview one contributor from each of the ten chapters of Diverse Educators: A Manifesto. Each conversation will reflect on how they have found and used their voice, discuss how identity shapes them as an educator, show the challenges they’ve had to navigate on their journey and identify the changes they would like to see in the school system.

00:01:05:25 – 00:01:18:11
Nick
Hello and welcome to the Diverse Ed podcast. My name is Nick Kitchener-Bentley and I’m a lead practitioner and drama / inclusion teacher at Sarah Bonnell school. I’m also on the steering group for LGBT ed.

00:01:18:26 – 00:01:29:09
Yamina
And I’m Yamina Bibi and I’m an assistant headteacher also at Sarah Bonnell school. I’m also a network leader for Women Ed in London. In this episode, we talk to Shaun from the Sexual Orientation chapter.

00:01:30:09 – 00:01:34:21
Nick
Okay, so Shaun, could you please introduce yourself to the audience in one sentence?

00:01:35:15 – 00:01:50:11
Shaun
Hello, everyone. I’m Shaun Dellenty. Dr. Shaun Dellenty now, I’m a teacher, school leader and international advocate for LGBTQ+ inclusive learning communities. And I also wrote the Bloomsbury book Celebrating Difference: A Whole School Approach to LGBTQ+ Inclusion.

00:01:51:21 – 00:01:54:11
Yamina
Oh, I love that. Congratulations, Dr. Shaun.

00:01:54:21 – 00:01:55:11
Shaun
Thank you.

00:01:55:26 – 00:01:59:24
Yamina
What inspired you to write your contribution to Diverse Educators: A Manifesto?

00:02:01:03 – 00:03:32:04
Shaun
I guess what inspired me to write was really reflecting upon where we are right now and kind of where we’ve come to. Since I finished writing my own book in 2009, it was a great privilege to be invited to write for the book, but I guess I kind of wanted to put up a bit of a red flag really, because with my work around the UK and internationally it’s become very apparent that there is pushback from some quarters on LGBT+ inclusive education. And when you are, when you’re kind of working across a range of territories, like I do, very early on in my journey, I started to attract unpleasantness, hate, death threats sometimes and repeatedly was labeled as a pedophile and a groomer simply for wanting all young people to be safe in all schools and indeed all teachers and parents and carers. And what became apparent through my international work was that that was really starting to boil up. Particularly in places like Hungary and the United States. And I guess I wanted to put a red flag up with this chapter and say, look, I’m not saying this is going to happen, but it could happen. And we need to look to the past at the times of Section 28 to learn lessons and to consider where we all stand. If at some point in the future, we are told we are not allowed to support LGBT+ young people, which I hope we won’t be. But what if we were? So that really inspired my contribution to the book.

00:03:33:22 – 00:04:18:28
Nick
And thank you very much for that, Shaun. That’s really powerful. And I don’t want to say shocking actually, because I’m not really shocked, to be honest with you. I think that some of that stuff is out there and obviously it’s happening and people are, you know, having to experience that. So I’m sorry that you’re doing that. But in terms of the work you’re doing, I know what a positive impact it’s having. And I’m very grateful that you do what you do. And it’s really, really powerful. And also, from my point of view, I’d like to congratulate you on becoming a doctor. Well done. We wanted to broaden it out and tothink about the overall chapter, sexual orientation. So could you tell us from your perspective a little bit about some of the different themes that the overall chapter wanted to explore?

00:04:19:14 – 00:10:10:16
Shaun
Yes, of course. I mean, it’s a lovely, vibrant chapter with multiple perspectives, which is what we want. I think the tone is set very nicely by Professor Jonathan Glazzard. His introduction really looks at the context around the Equality Act 2010, which of course we can’t assume will always be in place, but right now it is, and relates that directly to the toxic legacy of Section 28. And interestingly, that’s a theme that emerges throughout a number of the chapters, including my own, and it really does serve, I think, his introduction serves as a very prescient reminder that we shouldn’t take our current freedoms for granted and that progress can go backwards. It’s not always linear. He also introduces the concept of minority stress, and on that link, I think, that we all hold dear between LGBT+ inclusion and social justice more widely. Now, Amy Ferguson’s chapter really touches on the power of authenticity and the power of being empowered to be able to bring our whole selves to work should we choose to. And how that can then enable stronger relationships. And of course, as we know learning communities are built on strong relationships. So it’s about nurturing stronger, authentic relationships and fostering academic success. But of course, that really important sense of well-being and belonging. And Andrew Moffat and his chapter builds very much from his No Outsiders work and uses some really nice practical examples from his books and his texts in terms of how books and texts can be used to explore personal development strategies, for RSE and citizenship. So that’s really practical chapter. Daniel Tomlinson-Gray, founder of LGBT Ted, I think that’s how you say it. I always say it like it’s a teddy bear. I like saying it like that, so I’m going to say LGBT Ted, there we go. It’s kind of cuddly in that way. He very much comes at, approaches his chapter from the point of view of running a charity that has had funding from the government, which was then pulled away and the challenges that it brings. He also reflects upon, you know, as I’ve alluded to, the kind of shift in the political landscape over the last few years and where that might go in the future. But most significantly, the fact that any strategy in education needs resources and funding. Carly Hind’s chapter, I think is really powerful. It moves on to thinking about how we can avoid tokenism. And I think as we get further down the road with LGBT+ inclusion and education, you know, things like LGBT+ history month are fabulous, but they are a starting point really. And, and what we don’t want to be doing is kind of tick boxing and doing tokenistic affairs. So Carly really touches on the need for whole school approaches to LGBT+ inclusion and representation, but really informed by rich opportunities to listen and learn from young people. And I think that’s such powerful advice. And that leads very nicely to Jac Bastian from Diversity Role Models, who again looks at the power of sharing lived experiences and personal stories, and how that can build empathy, how that can build connection and again, forge stronger relationships. Lisa Jordan, her contribution, I think is really powerful in terms of exploring how we can, if we’re allowed to be and we want to be, serve as LGBT+ role models in schools and in workplaces, but that could also bring challenges and that we might not all be ready to step into that place or want to step in that place. And if we do, what do school leadership teams do to support us as professionals? Mahlon Evans-Sinclair, I found this particular chapter really, really exciting and really interesting and thought provoking. It really explores the themes in an intersectional way, themes of sexuality, of masculinity, and of blackness. Looking at the complex connections between sexual orientation, gender expression, gender stereotyping and race, and really encourages us, and I think this is so important, encourages all of us to kind of check our own bias, our own prejudices, not just in terms of non-LGBT+ people, but also in terms of being LGBT+ ourselves and how complex and layered our identities can be, but also our interactions with other members of a school community. Mayur Gupta brings the notion of career pathways and raising aspiration and I think this is something perhaps we don’t talk enough about because historically I think we’ve been so focused on kind of anti-bullying and visibility and not actually kind of thinking what happens to our LGBT+ students when they leave us, when they go out there into the workplace. So his contribution is really powerful about preparation for life, work and career development. And there’s some practical tips in that, making links to successful LGBT+ individuals and businesses and diversity networks in order to spin successful narratives. And then there’s a contribution from somebody called Nick Kitchener-Bentley, you know, and again, what I loved about this is it really does emphasise some of my kind of favourite themes from this work, really the power of sharing stories, the support we might need to do that because not everybody is ready to stand up and share that story. And actually, when we do stand up and share our stories, we don’t know how that’s going to affect us and affect other people. And what I love about this contribution, particularly as an equity card member and as somebody that trained and worked as a professional actor, is the power of theatre and drama and assemblies and public speaking in terms of sharing stories and collaborating and all of that building back into that theme we talked about earlier on social justice, LGBT+ inclusion, diversity, equity and inclusion. That’s what it’s all about.

00:10:11:21 – 00:10:38:14
Yamina
I love that Shaun and you summarised that so well. And yes, we know our lovely Nick has contributed to that chapter. And personally working with Nick, I’ve seen that work come to life and how powerful it’s been as well. And with all of those voices in the sexual orientation chapter, those voices are so powerful in helping things change. We’re also curious about what some of the key challenges are for people within this protected characteristic that your team really wants to address?

00:10:39:24 – 00:14:52:09
Shaun
Yeah, I think what was really interesting, what struck me immediately and again, it was, it’s shocking how often we find ourselves going – it’s not a surprise to me, you know, that tells you something in itself. So it wasn’t a surprise to me to see how often Section 28 came up. You know, it came up in the introduction. It came up in my section and it comes up in a number of other sections, that shadow of section 28, of course, it was a long shadow. It was a toxic shadow. And I still think in some respects it’s still there. Of course, what’s at the edges of that shadow now is the possibility that something like it could come back. And I don’t think we expect it to be quite there so quickly again, that’s shocking, frightening concerning in itself. And we need to be ready for that, however much we can be ready for that. But also things like the failure of the LGBT+ Action PLan. You know, I was there in 2018, I think it was, you know, at the launch of the action plan and heard various MPs spouting rhetoric which they’ve now gone backwards on and failed to act on, you know, and I just think that’s such a waste of public funds, but it’s also incredibly disappointing and again, was I surprised? Sadly, I wasn’t. So a lack of resources, you know, withdrawal of funds and an inconsistency, I think, that came over as a strong theme, and inconsistency in terms of teacher training and readiness, not just for teachers, but for anybody that goes to work in a learning community. You know, when I’m out training around the UK and around the world, I always ask for a show of hands at the start of my training sessions, you know, hands up. Did you ever have any training on LGBT+ lives, histories, experience, societal contributions when you were at school yourself and rarely do people put their hands up. And of course, I never put my hand up because I didn’t either. But then I will ask the same about initial teacher training. And yeah, we get a few hands up now, but the majority of people just kind of sit there looking a bit awkward through no fault of their own. So we know that there’s still a huge deficit. We know that there is some great practice out there, but it’s very inconsistent. And I think that notion of inconsistency of preparation, but also inconsistency in terms of delivery of whole school approaches to LGBT+ inclusion, really came out strongly from a number of the chapters. And this notion of authenticity and kind of almost feeling, particularly as we’ve had more out teachers, almost like a bit of a peer pressure really to kind of come out and serve as an authentic role model in school. And not everybody wants to do that and not everybody’s ready to do that, and not everybody feels supported to do that. And sadly, sometimes people can’t do it and it can go wrong for them. So what happens then? So I think, you know, I could really feel those concerns within this chapter as well. And I think linked to that, some of their contributions, I think there was a sense of their awareness that we are really still trying to play catch up and actually in the space we are trying to play catch up in now is becoming much more of a challenging space. So we acquired it kind of playing Whac-A-Mole, if you like, but actually now we’re kind of being whacked a bit harder from external forces as well. And often, you know, if you think about this work, often in schools, it can be landed or left to one person, one passionate individual or one steering group, one department, when actually it’s something that involves everybody within a school community. So when push back happens, you know, when we’ve got culture wars in inverted commas, when we’ve got the toxic discourse about trends going on, on social media and in the media itself and from some of our politicians, if you’ve just got one passionate individual or steering group trying to take this work forward, which is safeguarding, let’s state what is, it’s safeguarding. It’s keeping people safe. Then that puts a huge load on that individual or that steering group. So it’s got to be a load shared by everybody.

00:14:52:09 – 00:17:17:16
Nick
Shaun, I’m really, really struck by how clearly you’ve been able to put the state of play and how clearly you’ve been able to put the way that it feels right now to be someone who is LGBTQ+ in education, I think you’re describing it very, very accurately. And that really resonates with me in a way that does feel challenging. And I, like you said before, the red flag that you’ve waved in your chapter makes it very, very clear. And some of that has grown, hasn’t it, since actually the book itself was written. So I find it really, really powerful from your response there. What you do, though, I think it’s really helpful and your own contribution is you talk about how we can therefore take positive steps and what needs to happen. And there are some really, really valuable things that I think that everyone needs to hear. And so what I’m going to do, Shaun, if it’s okay, is just read out your key takeaways for the reader. I think they are really powerful and once I’ve read them, I would love to hear a little bit about what they meant to you or why that’s important, if that’s okay. You wrote, Shaun, while whole school approaches to LGBT+ inclusion should explore with all stakeholders the intersections between protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010, whilst also exploring the intersections between LGBT+ and non-LGBT+ identities and experiences, school leadership teams must establish a moral rationale for LGBT+ inclusion, in addition to educating all stakeholders as to the statutory rationale and communicate it upfront and on an ongoing basis. Legislation can change, schools must be courageous in riding out changes in societal attitudes to minority groups by culture, ethos and policies, meet everyone in the school community as they are with compassionate listening and amplify lived experience to develop empathy across school culture, use of up to date bullying and attitudinal data is vital, knowing with precision how biases and prejudice exist within schools, and sadly they do, grounds your aims and lived experience and affords you a robust moral arguments for your ongoing diversity and inclusion work. I mean to me when I read that, I think, wow, you really saw things coming. But I think that you put it very clearly, what people can do in a positive way. Could you just expand a little bit on some of those takeaways and explain why you consider them to be so vital?

00:17:18:13 – 00:23:22:24
Shaun
Yeah, I think let me start with the rationale first, because that was already kind of leaping into my head as we were talking earlier. You know, if you think about, you know, if the Equality Act was compromised around sexual orientation or gender reassignment or if it was taken away completely, what would we have to justify LGBT+ education? Actually, let’s take that label away and let’s replace it with safeguarding because that’s what it is. And actually, if you look at the latest version of keeping children safe in education, you know, it directly refers to the actions that schools take to prevent prejudice and discriminatory bullying, which I think is a positive step that it’s in there. But to me, you know, as far back as 2009 / 2010 when I started my own work in my own school as a result of data around homophobic bullying, I looked at that data and went, this is a safeguarding issue. Children are suffering – not on our watch. And really, for me that was, that was it. So to me that was the only justification and the rationale that we needed to go on a journey. Now what I’ve encountered along the way through my work, I’ve seen lots of brilliant practice. I’ve seen some patchy practice, some inconsistent practice, and I’ve seen, sadly, some times where it’s gone wrong and often where it’s gone wrong, the school didn’t take the time to kind of lock down the rationale and from a moral point of view, it’s around safeguarding, around kindness, compassion, inclusion, anti-bullying, and also from a statutory point of view and kind of do that as a whole staff and then express that, communicate that with clarity and transparency at the outset of the journey to all of the stakeholders and inevitably, if you don’t take the time to do that, you’ll have people in your own staff who might have their own prejudices and biases, who just don’t get what you’re trying to do. We don’t get that it’s safeguarding. And that creates a space in which their own prejudices and biases might grow and foster, and that can cause problems further down the line, similarly with parents and carers and colleagues. So the more time, the more strategic we are at the very outset and going let’s look at the problem, let’s look at why it happens, let’s look at what we’ve got in our arsenal to justify our journey and then essentially go on a PR journey. For me, it’s about PR, it’s about absolute crystal clarity. This is why we’re doing this work and this is why we’re not doing this work. And actually, if you take time to explore the nots, you can actually take each of the kind of top ten standard challenges, barriers that people put up. You know, you’re sexualising my children. You’re trying to groom them, you’re trying to turn them. You know, it’s about knowing that that’s out there and then working with that in advance to kind of disempower those and I think what it does is it gives you as a school, as a school leader, a kind of grounding. And we really need that grounding now more than ever in terms of we’re doing this because it’s the right thing to do and it’s safeguarding. If we haven’t taken that time to communicate that to all stakeholders, we really can’t then blame them because they probably won’t have had an education themselves about LGBT+ people. We can’t then blame them when their own prejudices and fears and misconceptions and myths start to come into play. So I think now more than ever, that initial step is more vital than ever. And I think intersectionality, you know, I didn’t even know what that word was until about five or six years ago. But what it did do was it really forced me to kind of look at people as people, because I think I’ve been forced into sort of looking at gay people and looking at trans people and looking at black people, looking at Muslims and wheelchair users. There’s something about a diversity journey that kind of forces you to do that in the initial stages. But for me, I always bring it back to being a school leader. For me it was always about being present with who was in front of me and meeting them as they are. And that means that there are multiple aspects of their identity and that I have to try and meet those needs with equity. That’s why we became educators, isn’t it? But I think the language of diversity and inclusion, as it was a few years ago, kind of forced us all into silos. And the great thing about the Diverse Educators book, a manifesto and why I kind of alluded to it in my kind of follow up tips, if you like, was that I think people don’t understand, through no fault of their own, that diverse experiences in terms of privileges, in terms of discrimination, that one individual can face. You know, when I’m out training, I share a story that happened quite recently to me where I was attacked in the street and held up against the wall of the Houses of Parliament by Britain First protesters and got accused of being a Muslim terrorist who was going to bomb parliament purely because I’ve got a beard. And, you know, I never expected to experience that particular kind of prejudice in my life. But it happened. And actually, you know, when it happened, it was quite scary. But after it happened, I was very grateful for that experience because then when I got back on the tube and was surrounded by people of lots of different cultures and faiths, you know, I just sat there and thought, is this how it is? Is this how it is when you’re wearing a symbol that’s associated with your religion or you’re wearing a headscarf, whatever it is, is this how it feels? So it opened my eyes. It connected. You know, it was an empathetic moment. Had that not happened, maybe I wouldn’t have been able to feel, which kind of brings us back to the power of stories, the power of empathy, the power of lived experience. And I do think, you know, even for somebody like me that works in this field, it’s hard to empathise with people that are very different from us. So we need to build those connections, those strong relationships that I keep banging on about.

00:23:22:24 – 00:23:53:15
Yamina
I just yeah, I’m completely moved by it. I think today I’ve just been crying a lot, but in a positive way, I promise. I’m just so moved by what you’re saying, and I think I have to tell you, because I talked to Nick about this all the time. There was this one session. It was the first ever Diverse Educators conference up in West Oxfordshire where we got lost. And I remember Nick and I going to your session and it just changed me. It was the moment when I realised that it was so much about the whole child. I’m going to be cry again. Sorry, guys.

00:23:53:15 – 00:23:53:26
Shaun
Now you’re setting me off.

00:23:55:03 – 00:24:37:12
Yamina
You changed me, the way I looked at this. I’m going to stop now. But I genuinely changed the way in which I thought about inclusion. And so much of my story had been, yes, I’m a hijabi Muslim woman. And that’s really hard. And then actually going, hold on, there are so many people out there with intersectional identities who are really struggling as well. And that’s where we are so similar. So I love the idea of meeting people where they are because, you know, we’ve since then tried to do a lot of work around inclusive allyship. And that’s the reason why, because you started that Shaun and I wouldn’t be, and that’s an inner work I’ve done for a very long time. So I’m sorry.

00:24:37:21 – 00:24:38:17
Shaun
Thank you. Don’t, don’t apologise.

00:24:39:04 – 00:24:40:27
Yamina
And I’ve actually got a question to ask.

00:24:41:14 – 00:25:11:08
Shaun
Thank you. We’ll get to that in a minute. I’ll just dry my eyes. Thank you so much. Yeah, I remember that day very well and yeah, I remember that day. It’s yeah, it’s such a privilege when people share their personal story with you. And I’m very, very moved and very grateful to you. But most of all, I’m really excited to hear what you’ve been doing and how you’re changing the world, because that’s what it’s all about. So love, gratitude, respect and solidarity with you.

00:25:11:10 – 00:25:21:05
Nick
I have to say, it has done so much and it is helping within our school and our journey and to be honest it means a lot.

00:25:21:17 – 00:25:42:13
Shaun
I’m so proud of you. I’m so proud of you. You know, both of you. I’m so proud of, you know, the whole Diverse Educators network. You know, I kind of wish you had been around when I first started my own work, really, because it was lonely, really. That was the word. I kept coming home and thinking, this is really lonely. So it’s wonderful now that we have these networks and these connections.

00:25:42:13 – 00:27:51:04
Yamina
It always reminds me of my, so when I was working in my NQT school, I was the only kind of teacher who was essentially a hijab wearing Muslim. But I remember a student coming up to me and saying, you know, he was a student in my year 10 class who I absolutely adored and just sat one day and just said, oh, this is who I am. And I remember the day before his head of year saying to me, I think something special is going to happen. Just be aware of it. And I was like, I don’t know what you’re talking about and I hadn’t expected it because I just built this relationship with this wonderful student of mine. And when he told me, I was like, oh, okay. Well, you know, it’s who you are, great, you know, for me it wasn’t a big deal, but I could understand why. And I remember going and speaking to the deputy head teacher at the time, and she said to me, how much of a privilege is that for you, particularly being you? And I didn’t really understand. So it’s like I’m just human. And I guess what she was saying is, as a visibly Muslim woman, you know, a lot of people might not see that and see you as an ally and see you as somebody safe to talk to. And I thought that moment was like, oh, okay. And I hadn’t realised that was a big deal because I’d been facing a lot of Islamophobia in that school myself from parents. And I think that was what connected me and that student because he’d clearly felt something, an affiliation, it’s just wonderful. But yeah that’s like with you Shaun and with Nick obviously but you know, the question, so we were really interested in your commitment to the manifesto where you said, I’m just going to read this out to you, if that’s okay. Learning communities, without exception, must pledge to support and represent all their diverse stakeholders, including those currently failing or falling within the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010. They must pledge to continue to do so should the Equality Act 2010 be part or fully repealed. Schools must stand for their diverse stakeholders not because of political direction, but because it is the compassionate and humane approach, respecting human rights and the right to an education, safe, free from bullying and discrimination. What a wonderful commitment to the manifesto, but could you tell us more about that and how you want to galvanise action from readers of Diverse Educators: A Manifesto, but also from our listeners today?

00:27:51:28 – 00:31:19:28
Shaun
Yeah, I think, you know, my advice would be, you know, if you haven’t done it already as a school community, you know, do sit down, come up with your, come up with your rationale, know why you’re doing it, communicate, make sure it’s on your website. But then imagine, you know, imagine, think ahead, think six months ahead, think a year ahead, think five years ahead. And hopefully this will never happen, but it might, imagine that the Equality Act goes. Imagine that something like Section 28 comes in and sit down and come up with your ten bullet points. This is why we do LGBT+ inclusive education in our school, and obviously that can be linked to your vision, your aims, to your ethos statement. And obviously, I mean, I say obviously it might not be obvious, that’s probably not the right thing to say. But, you know, it’s linked to safeguarding. It’s linked to compassion. It’s linked to preventing bullying. It’s linked to authenticity. It links back to all of those themes that these wonderful contributions have made to this chapter. But I think right now what we can all do is a little history. We can all look back to the story and the time and the experience and the learning of the Section 28 experience, and really steep ourselves in that and understand why that happened, where it came from, and how people challenged it, how people challenged it in schools, how they challenged it in networks, how they challenged it by forming connections and networks, by writing to Members of Parliament, by meeting with members of the House of Lords, by speaking out in the media and through trade unions. We may, for any number of reasons in the future, not just this particular issue, might have to make our voices heard to effect the change that we want to see and the compassion and kindness, inclusion that we want to see in schools, in education. So I think these are useful strategies for any of us working in schools across our entire education careers. And, you know, back in 2008, I was working as a class teacher and as a deputy head. I really didn’t value my own voice, particularly at that point. And I have to say, and believe it or not, I’m quite naturally shy. A lot of what you see publicly, I’ve kind of had to learn by watching other people, if I’m honest, and I never thought that by speaking out I could make any difference whatsoever. But what I learned was once you’ve got your data, you know, if you’ve got your data as a starting point and you’ve got your rationale clear and communicated that grounds you, that gives you that grounding and that enables you to weather storms. And some of those storms can be really, really hard, but it gives you a place to go back to. This is why we’re doing it. This is our data. This is what’s going on nationally. This is what’s going on internationally. And what happens through that, in the same way that school policies and parent home school agreements, they can be used to depersonalise conflict. And that’s really one of my major learning points. I guess the root of my advocacy is it’s not about falling into personal conflict. It’s about finding strategies that we can use as a starting point, as a grounding point for conversation and expectations. You know, and in all of those, all of our schools, are basics. Expectation should be kindness, compassion, safeguarding and inclusion.

00:31:21:09 – 00:32:03:22
Nick
And it should be. But it isn’t always because you actually wrote and we noted in this chapter, you said, educators can choose to validate, celebrate, educate and keep safe some school stakeholders or all school stakeholders. And they can go either way. And we, you know, it’s really interesting because you’ve done an inordinate amount of work professionally to support LGBTQ+ equality in education. I was just wondering about the impact that that work has had and why, when safe, successful, positive environments are created for young people and indeed for staff, what does that do for them?

00:32:03:22 – 00:34:15:17
Shaun
I think well, any number of things. I think it helps things like attendance. I think it helps reduce bullying. You know, it helps in terms of just being able to focus on your learning. You know, just the old saying, you know, I don’t have to think about, I don’t have to feel nervous about walking through the school gate or looking at my mobile phone or coming into the school. Because I know we’re cool here with being an LGBT+ person, being whoever you want to be. That means I can focus on my learning and focus on my studies, and that hopefully means I’ll have the best chance of life. And I think the most successful manifestation of LGBT+ inclusion that I see is where it’s really led by young people, you know, and as one of the contributions writes in this chapter, you know, the value and the power of listening to young people and valuing their lived experience. But more importantly noticing when it doesn’t align to our own experience, you know, I’ve got an LGBT+ youth group at my own school and often their experiences are very different from my own and the experiences that I had growing up. When I hear them, I’ve got a choice of kind of challenging them and kind of going, oh, you know, that can’t be true. Or I don’t, you know, I’m getting a bit funny about it. Or going, that’s really interesting. Yeah, my experience was different from that, but I’m interested in your experience. Tell me more. It’s that kind of open, more open mind and open heart, isn’t it? And that kind, compassionate curiosity to their experiences. But then being able to kind of translate those experiences into messages that can be taken to the whole school community. So again, we’re building those connections, those strong relationships and building empathy. So for me, it’s where it becomes student led. And I think it’s also where, you know, quite rightly students are going, no, we don’t want to do Black History Month, we don’t want to do LGBT+ history month. We should be doing that in every minute of every day, in every single lesson, policy, assembly and strategy, and they’re dead right. That’s how it should be. So that for me is kind of the, you know, that’s where we’re getting to in some contexts, where we go to then, who knows? That’s the really exciting bit if we’re allowed to get there, but we might have to kind of fight to get there.

00:34:16:17 – 00:34:35:27
Yamina
I love that. And I think something I really picked up on is when you talked about, in the chapter, when you first piloted your LGBT+ inclusion training and how a minority of parents really interpreted that, as you called it, as an agenda. And I was really curious about that, actually, about how you challenged it and how others could go about challenging it, too.

00:34:37:04 – 00:38:39:22
Shaun
By establishing and writing down what our agenda was and not being frightened of having those conversations, because it was very clear that the majority of the parents, I don’t think any of them ever had any education themselves about LGBT+ inclusion. And that’s not their fault. That’s just the education systems that they went through. And that creates a vacuum. And into that vacuum comes misinformation, fake news, prejudice, intergenerational prejudice, faith based prejudice. And I don’t apportion any blame for that or judgment. And actually, because I don’t, that makes it easy to kind of sit down with people and go, I can see that you’ve got concerns and thank you for coming and sharing them. Now let’s talk about what we’re actually doing and why we’re doing it and what the potential impact of that is going to be on mental health, on levels of bullying and so on. And so on. So again, it’s almost, you know, if I look back now, I seem to remember sitting down as a leadership team and I’m sure we kind of came up with a four-page document that was basically going to be our response if it blew up in the press or parents complained, and actually we never had to use it. But the very fact that we sat in a room for half a day talking all of that stuff out meant that we had a consistent grounding in terms of being able to justify it from a moral and statutory point of view. But it also meant that when we, because I did a bit of training with them as well, when parents did come in and kind of spout some of the myths and misconceptions, we were empowered to kind of notice and kind of be able to go, okay, you know where that’s coming from, we can work with that one rather than kind of getting drawn into it on an emotional level, if that makes sense. So we kind of just saw the justification, the logic for it, if you like, and took out that judgment and then were able to take it back to our policies. And actually, the day that I came out in an assembly in January 2010, wherever it was, the next morning, I had a group of parents knocking at my door that wanted to come and talk to me. And I kind of automatically went on the defensive. And it was a group of Muslim parents and they, and they said, we want to talk to you. And we just want to say to you, oh, I’ll get emotional again. We want to say to you, thanks for what you did yesterday, because what you’ve done is sent a clear message that whoever you are in the school, you’re welcome and you’re loved and you can be yourself. And that will keep children like you safe. But it will also keep our children safe as well. And that’s the kind of school that we want to go to. And that was, you know, that was my kind of first experience with parents. After I’d come out and it hit the press. And to me, I will never forget that. And I’m very grateful to them. That was such a joyful moment of acceptance and it was so important. It was always important, but it underlined the importance and for those of you who’ve got to know my work for a long time, it used to be called inclusion for all. And that was because it was not, my work was never about making a school safer for one group of people, a minority group. It was always about making it safer for everybody because that’s my job, you know, as a teacher, as a school leader, it’s all or nothing. And if it isn’t, go and find another job, you know, in my opinion. So I couldn’t just come up with a strategy that just flew a rainbow flag, although we did have a specific issue that needed that to be done, but that flag also then needed to broaden out to have every unique, diverse human individual that would ever walk through the school doors, represented and validated within it so that everybody knew that they were loved and they were accepted, but that sometimes there might be aspects of their personality or their culture or their faith or their appearance that some people might not get. And we understand that, and we’re going to work with it positively. And for me, that’s always been the bigger picture and always been the bigger, bigger win. It’s about being kind to everybody.

00:38:41:00 – 00:38:48:06
Nick
You are such a trailblazer, Shaun, honestly. I can see Yamina is crying over there.

00:38:48:06 – 00:38:51:07
Shaun
Sorry, Yamina.

00:38:51:07 – 00:39:30:27
Nick
In all seriousness, so much work that has gone on from you has had impacts far, far beyond your own immediate context. And so many of us, myself included, couldn’t have done some of the work without you doing some of that. So thank you so, so much. And I’m really, really grateful. And the last thing I wanted to ask about was something we spoke about before in terms of the current context, but we wanted to think about what changes need to happen in a positive light. So in an ideal world, what changes would you like to see happen in the school system and in wider society regarding our protected characteristic?

00:39:31:24 – 00:42:32:28
Shaun
Okay. So I think the notion of training comes out strongly from the chapter, but you know, it’s been an ongoing kind of comment that I’ve made over the years. You know, I think if we had high quality, regularly updated training for everybody around LGBT+ identities and added more broadly for anybody entering education, but also, you know, for people like school governors, management boards, dioceses, all of that and that it’s, you know, it’s strategic, it’s ongoing. It’s good quality, it’s consistent. There’s the word coming up in the chapter, you know, the inconsistency. So I think that would be high on the agenda. I think schools could benefit from making greater links to business diversity networks. There’s lots of business networks now, diversity networks, affinity networks that are full of role models. And, you know, they’re not just LGBT+, you know, I worked in Parliament until quite recently and we had Parly out, which was the LGBT+ network. We had the race network, women’s network, disability and so on and so on, you know, and often they are out to work with community projects and schools. So do research and do reach out to them. I think we’re all kind of crying out for a clearer playing field in terms of trans and non-binary inclusion. Will we get it from the current executive? I’m not holding my breath. So therefore again, we need to keep going back to safeguarding, to meeting the needs of young people with equity, but also remembering that, you know, gender reassignment is a protected characteristic of equality still to this day, I think we need a curriculum that explores human potential for prejudice and bias from the outset by exposing us all to multiple perspectives, identities, cultures and faiths from the very beginning, but then using things like philosophy for children to kind of unpick that in terms of how we respond, react to that. And I think the big mistake maybe the education systems make is just by going in our school, we’re a lovely inclusive school, we’re not racist, we’re not sexist and kind of instructing us not to be those things when underneath it we’re human beings and of course, we all are. So I think it’s much more honest to go, this is who we are as human beings. Let’s learn to notice these things when they arise and work with them positively. And as I’ve kind of alluded to earlier on, I think that kind of move away from themed days over time because for some schools right at the beginning of that journey, they’re really powerful. So I’m not saying wipe out LGBT+ history month, of course I’m not. I’m saying let’s aim high, let’s aspire for better, and let’s aspire for LGBT+ people to be represented and included in every single minute of every single day. And yes, they might be black, they might be Muslim, they might use a wheelchair, they might be neurodiverse, who knows? They could be any number of things because they’re a complex, unique human individual. And that’s a brilliant thing.

00:42:34:18 – 00:42:51:01
Nick
What a point to end on. Dr. Shaun. Fantastic. You’ve made, yeah, you’ve made us feel a lot of emotions today. And I know that we’ll have got a lot from that. And everyone listening will as well. So I just want to say a very, very big thank you.

00:42:51:14 – 00:42:59:24
Shaun
My gratitude to Diverse Educators, my gratitude to you both, my love and my best wishes. And I’m very proud of everything you both do.

00:43:00:23 – 00:43:11:11
Yamina
Thank you very much, Dr. Shaun for being with us today. We’ve been Nick Kitchener-Bentley and Yamina Bibi, the co-hosts of the Diverse Ed podcast.

[Outro Music]

00:43:11:11 – 00:43:27:22
Hannah
Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Diverse Ed Podcast. Check out the show notes for the recommendations of today’s guest. We’d love to hear what you think, so do leave us a review. We’ll be back soon with another author from our book Diverse Educators: A Manifesto.