Best Practice

Diversity and inclusion in the classroom

Pedagogy Diversity & Equality Lesson planning
When it comes to diversity, equality and inclusion, many schools have got the basics in place, but there is more to consider – especially for teachers who must ensure the inclusion of all pupils in their classrooms. Adele Bates reflects on a recent SecEd Podcast discussion
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An equality curriculum drop-down day. An LGBT+ History Month assembly. A black people in sports display. Disability awareness training for staff. An equity policy on the school website (in rainbow colours)…

In many of the schools (although not all) I work with, these headline nods towards diversity and inclusion are present and correct. We have come a long way from how school looked when I was going through it in the 1990s.

But what next? There is of course more to genuine inclusion and diversity than this. And how is all this helping our pupils’ learning?

We have started to pick at the surface – role models that pupils can aspire to, safe spaces to discuss protected characteristics, and more training for staff to understand the different pupils they might get to teach and how to ensure they are included. It’s all good stuff

But yes, there is still more to do. Before you despair, remember that there will always be more to do, we will never have finished – and that’s okay.

We live in a beautifully diverse world made up of a huge range of human beings – and set 11F last year are different to set 11F this year – so it stands to reason, that what worked for last year’s class won’t necessarily work for this year’s. There are 30 (or maybe even 35) new components (the pupils), and therefore 35 unknowns to consider.

I recently hosted the second of two SecEd Podcast episodes focused on diversity and inclusion. The first in May 2021 looked at diversity across the school and I wrote about the discussion in SecEd in September (Bates, 2021).

The second episode looked at diversity in the classroom and aired in November 2021 (see further information).

This article focuses on this second discussion and my reflections since it took place. My two guests for the podcast were Steven Russell, the founder of Elements SEMH Support, who as a child lived with nine foster families, was placed into two children’s homes and attended five schools, and Yamina Bibi, an English teacher and assistant headteacher from east London who also works on issues of diversity and inclusion.

In the podcast, we discussed in depth what the next stage is for individual teaching staff and what schools and teachers might consider doing.

Yamina explained that it starts with understanding ourselves: “When you understand yourself, you understand your toolkit.” Through coaching, supervision, mentoring or conscious awareness and reflection of our practice as a teacher, we begin to understand aspects of ourselves:

  • What are my abilities?
  • What’s my uniqueness as teacher?
  • How does that help me build relationships with pupils?
  • Where are my blind-spots? (SecEd, 2021)

I see the impact of these questions regularly when supporting staff with behaviour and inclusion – the way you support a pupil with behaviour needs is different to how I do. It must be, we are different people.

I know that I can in no way get away with being the “cool fist-pumpy” teacher. I sound ridiculous and the pupils don’t respect me. Instead, I explore those questions – I find my own approach that works for me, that’s sustainable for me, that’s professionally authentic for a pupil to be able to relate to.

Within that, I leave space for them – for them to meet me half-way and share who they are. I strive to offer a safe space so that they can share who they are of themselves in the pupil-teacher dynamic, knowing that this may change day-to-day. Importantly, I make that space challenging when it can be so that I am striving for each pupil to reach their potential with learning – even when it’s tricky.

In the podcast, Steven shared with us his experiences of working with schools and foster carers as an adult with experience of care. He was quick to warn us, that having the same characteristic as a pupil is not necessary nor a guarantee to helping them focus on learning.

His experiences of foster care and children’s homes in the 1990s will not be the same as Dylan’s in 2022. Instead, Steven highlighted the common theme that can help any teacher teach any pupil – regardless and yet inclusive of the differences that they may have: emotions.

He told the podcast: “What emotions do those pupils feel? Sadness? Anger? Grief? Shame? There are a lot of emotions that happen ... you’re not necessarily relating to their story, but you can relate to the emotions.”

Through this approach you do not need to have the lived experience of a pupil to support them, help them learn and be a great teacher for them. Yamina echoed this: “It’s about standing in solidarity, particularly with pupils who are at a disadvantage in the current education system, to check our own privilege – we all have them.”

She goes on to explain that as a pupil herself in year 10, the 9/11 bombings took place in America. In her Isle of Dogs school, she went from being “the Bengali girl who smells of curry” to “the Muslim girl who could blow you up”. She is not expecting everyone to understand that experience or how it may affect her learning then and career now, but instead to say simply: “I’m sorry you went through that, what can I do to support you?”

Back in the classroom, what can we as the teaching staff do moment-to-moment that will help to include all of our pupils and accept their differences?

The clues are in the Department for Education’s Teachers’ Standards (2011), which emphasise knowing our pupils and maintaining high expectations.

I have written a lot on my blog and in my book – Miss, I don’t give a sh*t: Engaging with challenging behaviour in schools (2021) – about how we can actually do this in easy-ways-that-take-no-planning-or-marking.

It is through knowing our pupils that we can include them more specifically, differentiate tasks to help them achieve what they never thought possible, and in some cases spot safeguarding concerns earlier rather than later.

And we will get it wrong.

As I alluded to at the beginning, this work is never done and it is constantly evolving – because we don’t have everybody’s lived experience, we will have blind-spots and biases – that’s human. That’s okay. It is what we do from that that makes the difference.

In the podcast, Steven picks up this point and reminds us how important self-reflection is in the process of teaching: “In order for us to move forward as a school with this, we have to have safe space for reflection and self-reflection.”

When an education community consciously reflects on where it has come from collectively and individually and where it wants to go to – whether that’s Finland in the 1970s or your year 9 geography group after the playground incident – then we have the chance to create a vision for education that is most useful for those it is intended for. In your classroom, in your school, reflect and engage in discussions:

  • Who are you working with?
  • Who is being left out?
  • Who is being asked to leave a part of themselves at the school gate? How does that affect their readiness to learn?
  • What are their strengths? Where do they need support?
  • What is your role in the community?
  • Where do you need support or challenge?
  • Do you really believe education is for all of your pupils? What are you doing – how are you supporting and differentiating – to ensure this is the reality?

 

Further information & resources

SecEd Summer Edition 2022

This article first appeared in SecEd's Summer Edition 2022. This edition was sent free of charge to every secondary school in the country. A digital edition is also available via www.sec-ed.co.uk/digital-editions/