A government scheme is helping BME teachers into school leadership roles – where they are currently sorely under-represented. David Hermitt explains

There are currently only 104 secondary school headteachers from Black Minority Ethnic (BME) backgrounds in the UK– that’s just three per cent.

With some schools seeing 70 per cent of students from a BME background, this means that the staff make-up simply does not reflect the student body.

Last year Congleton High School was selected as one of 30 UK schools to pilot a government-backed initiative aiming to tackle this inequality by providing professional development opportunities for BME teachers to help them to progress into leadership roles against the odds.

Out of the 18,000 qualified BME teachers, only 1,000 are in leadership positions and only 104 are headteachers.

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