Creating Value In Schools
Yamina Bibi is a former deputy head and English teacher, a consultant, CPD trainer and author of A Little Guide for Teachers: Thriving in Your First Years of Teaching. She is the Chiltern Teaching School Lead for Strategic Partnerships and School Transformation. This blog post is an edited extract from our longer conversation, Creating the Conditions to Thrive | Yamina Bibi I’m currently managing the Mission 44-funded Diversity in Teaching project, in consortium with Being Luminary, the Chartered College of Teaching and Chiltern Learning Trust. The project is about identifying and addressing the barriers that global majority teachers and candidates particularly face as they come into the profession, but also as they move through the profession into more senior and executive leadership roles. Those barriers start at recruitment, or even before they’ve applied – like where they're seen, or when they look on websites, do they feel like they're represented in the senior leadership of that initial teacher training provider or those schools that they might be placed in? We're talking a lot about belonging for young people, but how far are we talking about it for staff, and staff with protected characteristics? It also starts with things like interview and selection panels, and how diverse and representative they are of the wider school communities and UK society as a whole. Then as you move through recruitment, you go into retention. For trainee teachers and teachers from the global majority, it's about the experiences in school, the experience of leadership. Many report facing discrimination, both explicit and implicit racism, and the sense of not feeling belonging. We're talking a lot about belonging for young people, but how far are we talking about it for staff, and staff with protected characteristics? So though the project focuses on the global majority, I think it is helpful to be thinking about the barriers that colleagues with any protected characteristic might face, who need those additional reasonable adjustments. Even in terms of things like assessment, how global majority trainee teachers and teachers and leaders are assessed, there's implicit bias in that. Who is seen, who is valued, and who are we signalling to that they belong in our organisations? We’ve designed a free diversity and ITT online course, where we explored the bias in all of those three areas around recruitment, retention, and assessment, and the barriers that trainee teachers are facing. But within that course, we also talk about the solutions. Through sector experts, we provide solutions and strategies that colleagues in initial teacher training or in schools can apply to reduce those barriers. For leaders and managers who want to understand these issues better, the first thing I would suggest is really thinking about building our own racial literacy and real understanding of that. So before we even start to think about the strategies, I would say just raising consciousness within ourselves. Our online course does do that, and there are brilliant organisations such as Belonging Effect and the African Caribbean Education Network that are focusing on anti-racism as well. So really building our own racial literacy. I think it should be compulsory for anybody who works with global majority leaders and teachers to go on a racial literacy course to raise their own awareness. Then beyond that, I would say think about your recruitment practices. So again, it’s questions around who is seen, who is valued, and who are we signalling to that they belong in our organisations, through our marketing and communications? Do we make those reasonable adjustments? Who is represented on the marketing materials? Is it diverse, with a variety of protected characteristics? You don’t just wait for colleagues to come to you. Some initial teacher training providers have said, ‘well, we're in an area where actually it's not diverse. What can we do?’ And the question I would ask is: what are you doing to go out into those communities to show people that they belong, whatever their protected characteristic? Have we considered our websites? Who is represented on the marketing materials? Is it diverse, with a variety of protected characteristics? Then, really thinking about our selection and interview panels. Are we just judging based on these specific criteria, or is there more that we can do? So for example, lots of SCITTs and teacher training providers say, ‘But Yamina, a lot of the time we’re rejecting candidates because they don't have the qualifications, or their personal statement doesn't come across as effective’. Our question then is: what can you do as an organisation to support? There are some brilliant initial teacher training providers who are part of our project, who have really started thinking about reasonable adjustments, additional courses or meetings that they can have with those candidates to almost coach them. Which is really exciting. Lots of people say, ‘oh, but isn't that bias?’ And I say, what you are doing is removing barriers that might be impacting them. Have a really clear policy and process about when it happens, not if it happens. Along with that, they're also thinking about school placements. So the majority of trainee teachers and obviously current teachers and leaders are in schools. And it's that experience that they talk sadly, most negatively about. They say that when they face racism or discrimination, there's not enough done about it. So one of the strategies that the experts suggest is to have a really clear policy and process about when it happens, not if it happens. Just like with safeguarding. It's now in the new safeguarding policies, isn't it, that racism is included as one of the things that we need to be thinking about. Is that something we've got a process for? What happens? Another thing: what many SCITT leaders or ITT providers from global majority backgrounds themselves say is, ‘it always comes to me’. Because I'm the only person of colour here, I then have to be the person who has that conversation with the black trainee teacher or the South Asian or the Muslim, or the Jewish trainee teacher because I'm Jewish, because I'm black, or because I'm Muslim. Then you've added that additional burden and pressure on that leader themselves. So that's why I go back to building your own racial literacy and across the school or provider, rather than just hoping that somebody with lived experience might know best. You are ready for it, you know exactly what's going to happen and you've got zero tolerance. Because I can be honest with you and say, yes, I'm visibly Muslim, but I'm not always the best representative of what it means to be a Muslim woman. My experience might be different to somebody who wears a face covering, for example. Just because I’ve got lived experience, that doesn't necessarily make me an expert in terms of racial literacy. So be aware of that as well. One of the threads that keeps coming through KCSIE is that idea of just because it’s not being reported, that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. So those processes and policies are important because when people are looking at your school or organisation, then they might be looking for those things and saying, ok, what will happen if X, Y, and Z happens to me? And again, lots of colleagues who've been on this project were worried about what that might be saying about the organisation. Does that mean lots of racism happens or that antisemitism happens? We're saying no, what that signals is that you are ready for it, you know exactly what's going to happen and you've got zero tolerance. You've got processes and policies in place to support colleagues if or when it does happen. What are some of the barriers that colleagues might be facing and how can we reduce that? That's really empowering and positive I think. What we then found from the project was trainee teachers reporting more of those incidents. That's actually an indicator that it's working, because they say we feel safer to report it because we know something's going to get done. So we see that as a positive, not a negative. While there are specific things that we can do when it comes to a protective characteristic like race, for example, around anti-racism, if we really think about it, I can't separate those different identities within myself. I'm not just a British Muslim, or a woman. I'm not just neurodiverse, I don't just wear the hijab. All of those things are part of me. If we can preempt that and think about how we create schools that are responsive to the intersectionality within some somebody's identity, then we'll be doing great work, I think. It can feel overwhelming. There's nine protected characteristics – how am I going to help everybody?! And actually it's just thinking, well, what are some of the barriers that colleagues in general might be facing and how can we reduce that? In the most empowering spaces and places, I could say that I had these needs. I think that will really support the greater work around inclusion and belonging in our schools for both staff and students. If you look at the data around how many people in the general population are neurodiverse, then they must be teaching and leading in our schools. And yet I think it's still a taboo, unfortunately, to say I've got dyslexia, or I'm dyspraxic, or I need this. I say that as somebody with lived experience. When I first started teaching, I remember applying for a job in a school, and my friends who were already working there said, don't say that you're dyslexic. Don't say, and I didn't. So I didn't tick that box. I just said, I'm absolutely fine. And I struggled for almost half of my career, because I was afraid of what that would tell people about me. That they would think I wasn't good enough, or competent enough, or skilled enough to be a leader. But what I found is that in the most empowering spaces and places, I could say that I had these needs like dyslexia and ADHD, and it was welcomed and it was something that was adjusted to, and not seen as a problem. Find more recommended reads in the Creating Value in Schools bookshop. Disclosure: If you buy books linked to our site, we may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops.Top takeaways
Barriers facing global majority teachers and trainees
Building racial literacy
Unpicking recruitment practices
Put processes and policies in place
Don’t rely on the person with lived experience
Being prepared and proactive
We all have different identities
Empowering spaces and places
What next?
