Chronicle January 2021

11 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

three intertwined themes: understanding the extent and nature of racism in the School and defining strategies to address it; ensuring that our curriculum provides opportunities to hear diverse voices and explore issues around equality and diversity; and that the staff (particularly in pupil-facing roles) reflect more closely the diversity and internationalism within our pupil body. Of course we had to look at our policies and procedures and the data we collect and report, but much more important was to engage with the whole school community. We engaged a company called Flair Impact, racial inclusivity specialists, to carry out an online anonymous survey (for staff and pupils) on awareness of race issues and how much and what sort of racism is encountered at School. We followed up the results with senior pupils to dig deeper into how we can support pupils in “standing up” rather than “standing by” when they see race-inflected unkindness. The social justice prefects, Harrison Wells and Alexander Barrington Brown, have been excellent here, leading workshops for House year groups, speaking in assembly and using Teddies Instagram to raise awareness. Senior pupils have helped us to create scenarios for teacher training and we will use the same examples for pupil discussions in PSHE. It is really important to us that the drive to stamp out racism is being led by pupils, based on their experiences. A number of OSE have offered their support and we hope that we can invite some of them back to School in the near future to share their experiences. In the classroom, PSHE isn’t the only place where we can open up discussions about diversity and equality. Internationalism is an integral part of the IB curriculum, but we need to ensure that the same range of perspectives is available to all pupils and we will continue to look carefully at which syllabuses we choose to teach. We have the great advantage, of course, that in the Middle School years, we have our own courses where we control the content. This gives us tremendous opportunities to use current examples, as, for example, the Classics Department using Black Panther/ Chadwick Boseman in the unit on 'Heroes'. We are proud of our international outlook, but must honestly admit that we have struggled to attract a diverse workforce, particularly in pupil-facing

so we are almost certainly missing out on some very talented individuals. Alongside looking at how we present the School in recruitment advertisements and where we advertise, we are delighted to be working with Mindful Equity UK. They are dedicated to helping young women from ethnically diverse backgrounds get into teaching and then supporting them as they move into senior management. We want to help them to provide some of that support for early- career teachers, and we will be able to share more detail on our collaboration soon. Schools like ours have a rich history which will always be part of who we are, but we need to have the ability to look critically at the past and face up to uncomfortable truths and continue to improve our practices for current and future pupils and staff.

Margaret Lloyd, one of the School's Deputy Heads

roles – it is too often true that independent schools attract candidates who attended similar schools and have similar backgrounds,

. FarmAbility Pigs are a new addition to the Community Farm on

school grounds near the Boat House. Pupils regularly attend sessions hosted by the charity, FarmAbility, where they work alongside co-farmers with autism and learning disabilities. The young people enjoy working together on basic farm tasks such as painting the farm buildings, mucking out and, as Imogen Black demonstrates, brushing down the pigs, Asterix and Obelix.