How do we ensure all students feel a sense of belonging?

“If children feel safe, they can take risks, ask questions, make mistakes, learn to trust, share their feelings, and grow.”

— Alfie Kohn

As educators, we take pride in helping shape the lives of young people, in the knowledge that something we say or teach may resonate and bear fruit in the future. We usually deploy a ‘one size fits all’ approach, trusting in the sincerity that inspired us to work in an industry that is known for being run on the kindness of good people. Modest pay in relation to a huge workload is generally where this sentiment comes from.

However, the difference in the societal experience for those who hold protected characteristics means not all students begin the ‘race’ at the same starting point. This means that a 'one size fits all approach’ leaves certain students behind by default. Without a conscious approach that works around these caveats, it is possible for sincere educators to be leaving certain sections of young people behind year after year, not affording them the same chance to succeed as others.

In the UK Equality Act 2010, nine characteristics were defined as being ‘protected’. Evidence shows that for those who hold any of these characteristics ‘there is still significant discrimination in employment, provision of goods and services, and access to services such as education and health.’

The nine characteristics are:

• Age

• Disability

• Gender reassignment

• Marriage and civil partnership

• Pregnancy and maternity

• Race

• Religion or Belief

• Sex

• Sexual orientation

I provide mentoring, training and consultancy services to schools, specifically related to the protected characteristics of Race, and Religion or Belief. This fundamentally involves making schools feel more inclusive for students of colour, and students who represent a religion/belief system.

If young people who hold protected characteristics are made to feel safe during their formative years, a self-accepting foundation is built within them. This not only helps them fulfill their potential, but it means they are also more likely to go on and question discrimination if they encounter it in the future. On the other side, we have an equally important responsibility to educate the wider student body. This is a chance to disrupt potentially dangerous narratives held against people who hold protected characteristics. If we empower young people holding protected characteristics, whilst educating their peers in the hope they become allies, we can create a generation of young people who will push for social change side by side.

The consequences of overlooking this work are stark when you consider how the internal world of a young person who holds a protected characteristic typically unfolds. During adolescence, brain areas involved in social understanding reorganise as young people need to negotiate complex relationships. This is essential if they are to find a place in peer groups. When a young person who holds a protected characteristic begins to understand how their main identity/identities are generally rejected on a societal level, they internalise this spurning and a self-rejecting core belief forms.

The external consequence of this internal experience is that this core belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Young people with a self-rejecting core belief begin to see supposed evidence of their lack of worth everywhere. Survival instincts kick in and a state of vigilance ensues. Some create safety in hyperarousal states (act out, confrontational, defiant), others achieve it through hypoarousal states (numb, isolated, operate under the radar). Students preoccupied with creating safety for themselves are in no headspace to learn. Safety takes precedence over academia. Not only does this act as an impediment to their learning, but their future aspirations also suffer.

In adopting a systemwide commitment to DEI, we begin to work towards relieving young people of this burden. By becoming custodians of their safety, we ‘free’ young people and allow them to operate from a more authentic part of themselves. Not only does this allow them to focus on academia and raise their level of aspiration, but it also helps them gain a stronger sense of their identity.

A multi-level approach throughout the school is needed. It is not a few major changes that make the difference, rather it is many small things working simultaneously. A general guide however involves the following:

• At SLT level, establishing a DEI charter which embodies the school’s overall commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

• At the middle-leader level, the points established in the charter need to be broken down into plans of action.

• Gradual layers of training need to be delivered to the wider teaching body to help staff firstly gain an understanding of the importance of the work, and then to help them develop the skills needed to get their interactions with students right.

• Ground-level interventions such as establishing a student forum where students who hold protected characteristics are given a voice and a platform from which they can shape the school, as well as making specialist mentoring available for supportive or educative means.

• Eventually, establishing a parent forum to further invite a wider perspective into the school, whilst also making links with specialist organisations/guest speakers to benefit from their expertise in niche areas.

These basic changes are supplemented with many small initiatives layered in. Addressing the school hierarchy step-by-step, adding richness at all levels leads to a change in culture. The impact is usually felt quicker than one would assume. I am always pleasantly surprised at how schools are able to make huge strides very quickly once they commit to this effort. The changes tend to have a self-perpetuating quality and quickly become ‘just the way we do things here’.

This is however complex work, often met with apprehension and fear. Educators afraid of having career-ending accusations levelled against them in case they get something wrong shy away from being part of the change. But this is not about ‘weeding out the bad apples’. It is about inspiring and empowering those within the education industry to take a look at the way they educate objectively, with honesty and curiosity, under guidance that makes them feel safe enough to be vulnerable. This can have a profound effect on staff, not just on the way they educate, but on how they interact with society as a whole. In doing so, the hope is that no student is ever left behind.