Well, it is January. Start of a new Half Term, a new Term, and a New Year.
They say that Christmas is a time for reflection, and for me, this Christmas, I decided to reflect on my progress over the course of 2022 - as a person, a teacher, and someone with a keen and genuine passion to see my students - past, present, and future - live their truth.
I also got thinking about others working in EDI - particularly in schools, what do they do? How much do they do? Do they get paid? A title? Some time to work in?
With those thoughts, I set out to my Twittersphere and got to work.
I composed a poll for UK teachers, set out in three stages. The first stage is for all UK teachers and the second and third are for those involved in EDI within their schools.
I am incredibly grateful to those that responded (82 lovely people in all).
So, the Judge's scores are in (sorry, couldn't resist the Strictly vibe).
The first question in my poll asked 'Do/Did you have someone responsible for, leading, and/or have a title of responsibility of EDI in your school?'.
The results showed that 49% of respondents did not have someone in their school who was responsible, lead, or had a title for EDI. Compared to 30% who knew who their responsible person for EDI was, 15% who identified as the responsible person, and 6% who responded as unsure about their responsible person. Collectively 55% were unsure or don't have someone in a post.
Moving onto the second question in the poll asked 'If you answered ‘Yes – It’s Me’, which of the following is given to you with this role?', which saw the 15% who answered, further expand on their response through two additional questions.
Following this question, this saw 47% of our responsible people for EDI have only a title in which to do their work. What this title is in terms of on paper or what is communicated to students, staff, and the school community, who knows? Whilst 23% responded having been given PPA time and remuneration for the role, meaning both time and money assigned to the function of EDI within a school. With 15% only being given the remuneration and 15% only being given the PPA time. This I do find interesting. Whether the pool of people is small or not, 77% of the collective response here shows that a combination of PPA, title, and remuneration is not considered.
The final question, again for our responsible people for EDI, was about what else is attached or given to them as part of this role (considering that for some of them, they are not even paid to do said role), phrased as 'How much involvement do you have with Extra-Curricular, PSHE, or intervention?'.
So, Scotty, what does this small data capture say to you?
For me, I can briefly summarise it as follows:
- Some educational institutions have no one responsible for their EDI function. This begs the question 'What is your EDI function?', especially as people who said this clearly want someone in the post.
- Of those who are in post and responsible for EDI, some are not being paid or given time back in PPA to work on this post as well as their other duties.
- As well as leading on EDI without a combination of PPA, remuneration or even a recognised title, we also have colleagues here who are taking on further responsibility (I will be doing a separate post about the need to separate EDI practice and PSHE, including having separate leads - one person).
As a conclusion to the research gathered and analysed, I would suggest schools have a clearly defined post for the responsibility of the EDI function. This is something that has to be taken as seriously as the Literacy strategy, Safeguarding function, and PSHE curriculum. This is a function that sits alongside Safeguarding and PSHE, not underneath them. Even more so, it plays a part in all aspects of School operations, from Teaching and Learning to HR and logistics.
Alongside my own data capture, I wanted to see where the land lies with data on a wider level, so I delved into the Global Benchmarking Survey for 2021-22 from d&i Leaders (written in collaboration with Charlotte Sweeney OBE, Gamiel Yafa, and Dr. Dowin Atewologun, 2022), where responses were taken from multiple industries, such as financial services, manufacturing, and education from across multiple countries. The findings included the following;
- The number of organisations that had either a dedicated function or role for EDI rose from 2020-21 by 6% (from 60% to 66%). This has suggested a 'sizeable proportion of the profession' are fulfilling EDI as part of another role (which would tally with my data capture).
- A third of respondents for their capture worked closely with only HR, which Sweeney notes that it 'does not surprise' them when considering where we can be at with our EDI agenda. EDI does not solely focus on one area but is plugged into multiple functions within an organisation.
Overall, all the data suggests we need to have consistency in how all educational establishments approach the function of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion;
- Having a dedicated EDI function, where a role is accountable and holds people to account.
- It is important to allow time for the role in which to meet with staff, students, or the wider community - such time can be used for restorative education, welfare checks, or progress reviewing.
- Such time provided can also be directed to complete research, planning, and preparation - whether this be training for staff, resources, and information for students and their parents or guardians
- In return for the above, it is also important to be properly remunerated for the role (ideally you would be looking to be at least TLR 2a for a permanent role), and for this to be added to a School's staffing infrastructure and objectives.
As always, take care lovelies.
- Scotty
References/Further Reading:
Atewologun, Dr. D., Sweeney, C., & Yafa, G (2022) d&i Leaders: Global Benchmarking Survey.
Rundell, K. (2013) Rooftoppers. Faber & Faber: London.
Comments
Post a Comment