equality and diversity how to embed e&d into your everyday teaching practice
TRANSCRIPT
Equality and Diversity
How to embed E&D into your everyday teaching practice
A wealth of evidence shows that education is a key determinant of life
chances. As well as being a right in itself, education is an enabling right, allowing individuals
to develop the skills, capacity and confidence to secure other rights and
economic opportunities.
Changes because of Educational Equality of Opportunity
• Educational attainment has been transformed in recent years. • Around 60% of young people are now getting good
qualifications at 16 (5+ A*-C GCSEs or equivalent including English and Maths).
• In 2013 2,340,275 students enrolled in higher education in the UK. A generation ago almost all the students on the university campus were White British, today 1 in 5 are from ethnic minority groups and an increasing number of disabled students are also attending.
• Women are now ahead of men in many aspects of educational success.
• A considerable change from a time when educational opportunities were only available to a minority of young people.
Current Inequality• All the evidence shows that educational attainment continues to be
strongly associated with socio-economic background. • Educational outcomes differ markedly by: gender (on average boys
attainment is lower than that of girls); pupils from some ethnic minority groups (Black Caribbean, Gypsy, Traveller, Roma), and those eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) are performing less well as early as age 5.
• For students from lower socio-economic groups, the gap widens during the school years (this is not the case with most other underachieving groups).
• The gap in students’ GCSE results according to their family backgrounds remains wider than most other educational inequalities.
• This gap is accentuated when combined with other factors associated with educational underperformance, such as gender, disability and even month of birth!
FE Colleges• There are 3 times as many students at Colleges eligible for a free meal
than at maintained school sixth forms. • The students educated at colleges are much more likely to have been
negatively affected by educational disadvantage and inequality than pupils who choose the sixth form route.
• Colleges educate almost double the number of 16-18 year olds compared to maintained school sixth forms.
• Colleges are uniquely placed to be “engines of social mobility” as many of their learners come from disadvantaged backgrounds and have left school with poor literacy and numeracy skills.
• Understanding how inequality has impacted on the lives of these young people and embedding equality of opportunity into every aspect of teaching and learning is the key to ensuring more young people have the qualifications and confidence to leave college and enter the workforce.
Tackle the legacy of school inequality…
Equality Act 2010
The Act is designed to focus on two key areas:
• bringing together in one place all of the various strands of discrimination legislation (over 116 separate pieces)
• strengthening the law in relation to equality
General Duty - The Aims
• Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other conduct prohibited by the Act
• Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not
• Foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.
Equality/Protected Characteristics• Race• Sex• Disability including Learning
Difficulties and Mental Health• Gender Identity• Religion/Belief or no Religion/
Belief
• Sexual Orientation• Pregnancy and Maternity• Age• Marriage and Civil Partnership
Socio economic status or ‘class’ is not currently protected under equality legislation despite its link with poor education outcomes; reduced life expectancy; poverty and poor health. However, in terms of education this is now the main priority area and students eligible for free school meals are considered to be the most vulnerable of learners. Their vulnerability can be compounded (multiple times) by other factors related to equality of opportunity.
Embedding Equality into Teaching and Learning• On exit, students should have skills and experiences that
prepare them for today’s multi-cultural and diverse society.
• Learners’ self-esteem should be encouraged by the celebration of all learners and the groups to which they belong.
• Learners’ abilities to understand and empathise should be developed through learning about aspects of many people’s lives.
• All learners’ sense of belonging should be strengthened and all learners should be encouraged to value and respect ‘others’.
Embedding Equality and DiversityChoose the right resources:•Aim to choose resources that do not stereotype, disadvantage or poke fun at anyone based on a personal characteristics.•Use materials that promote good equality practice and community cohesion.Challenge discriminatory assumptions and attitudes: •Challenge anything discriminatory that you hear either immediately in front of the class or if you need time to think challenge in broad terms and ask the student(s) to stay behind after your lesson.
Promote respect for diversity:•Set clear ground rules•Signpost students to the college’s equality policies•Encourage students to share information about themselves by using ice breakers to build good relationships, listening and learning from each other•Ensure that people from different groups are able to work together and that issues of inequality in the learning environment are challenged.
In your lessons:•Provide a range of learning opportunities•Challenge and avoid the use of negative or potentially offensive stereotypes or assumptions.•Encourage students to value similarities as well as differences•Challenge and actively discourage any language or behaviour which is racist, sexist and homophobic or which demeans people with disabilities or people from particular neighbourhoods, areas and so on.
Resources - maths
• ‘Teaching methods should encourage positive attitudes to mainstreaming equality and diversity.’
• Making maths contemporary and relevant with current discussions about equalities issues will mean:students learning and applying maths techniques on
topics linked to classroom discussionTeachers will have the opportunity to find out more about
their individual studentsthe chance to learn maths in the context of an animated
discussion while giving the opportunity to guide their learning about equalities.
Disability and Maths• Use a current story from a national or local news source e.g. Kanye
West’s recent concert in Sydney of which there is readily available YouTube footage
• http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/scottharris/100076162/kanye-wests-idiotic-attitude-to-disability-is-symptomatic-of-a-bigger-problem/
• A discussion about what students think about what Kanye did; how the two highlighted concert goers might have felt; the number of additional disabled people at the concert who might have managed to stand but only with difficulty; include aspects from the Telegraph article about people having to prove their disability; also think about the proportion of disabled people (compared to the numbers in the population) who might attend a Kanye West concert.
• Use the classroom discussion as a means of introducing the maths resource on disability. Encourage the students to think of their own maths related questions, research the data and work out the maths.
Sexual Orientation and Maths
Start the lesson with film clip about Wanda Sykes followed by a discussion about whether it is still difficult for people to ‘come out’ about their sexual orientation. Followed by maths resource. Use the discussion to encourage students to think of their own questions, research the data and work out the maths.
English ResourcesUse poetry and literature from a wide range of authors for example: Authors with dyslexia and other Learning Difficulties
Benjamin Zephaniah•Zephaniah was born and raised in Handsworth in Birmingham. He is dyslexic and left school aged 13 unable to read or write. Zephaniah is a prolific poet, performance poet and author.
Working Class AuthorsJeanette Winterson•Jeanette Winterson is a British author and broadcaster. Lee Hall•Lee Hall is a screen writer and was the creator of Billy Elliott.
Teacher strategies – What works?Feedback +8 Outdoor/adventure learning +3
Meta-cognition and self regulation +8 Sports participation +2
Peer tutoring +8 Arts participation +2
Early Years intervention +8 Extended school time +2
1:1 tuition +5 Individualised instruction +2
Oral language interventions +5 After school programme +2
Homework (secondary) +5 Learning styles +2
Collaborative learning +5 Mentoring +1
Mastery learning +5 Homework (primary) +1
Phonics +4 Teaching assistants +1
Small group tuition +4 Performance pay 0
Behaviour interventions +4 Aspiration interventions 0
Digital technology +4 Block scheduling 0
SEAL +4 School uniform 0
Parental involvement +3 Physical environment 0
Reducing class size +3 Ability grouping -1
Summer schools +3 Repeating a year -4
Effective Feedback - plus 8 What do I need to know?
Providing effective feedback is challenging. Research suggests that it should:• be specific, accurate and clear (e.g. “It was good because you...” rather than just• “correct”).• compare what a learner is doing right now with what they have done wrong before (e.g.
“I can see you were focused on improving X as it is much better than last time’s Y…”).• encourage and support further effort (getting a balance between support and challenge)
and be given sparingly so that it is meaningful (as too much feedback can stop learners working out what they need to do for themselves).
• provide specific guidance on how to improve and not just tell students when they are wrong.
• be supported with effective professional development for teachers.
Wider research suggests the feedback should be about complex or challenging tasks or goals as this is likely to emphasise the importance of effort and perseverance as well as be more valued by the pupils. Feedback can come from other peers as well as adults (see Peer tutoring).
Meta-cognition and self regulation - plus 8
What do I need to know?Teaching approaches which encourage learners to plan, monitor and evaluate theirlearning have very high potential, but require careful implementation.
Teach pupils explicit strategies to plan, to monitor and to evaluate their learning, and give them opportunities to use them with support and then independently.
When using approaches for planning, ask pupils to identify the different ways that they could plan (general strategies) and about best approach for a particular task (specific technique).
Monitoring involves identifying the key steps they need to be aware of as they go through a task to keep it on track. (Where might this go wrong? What will be thedifficult parts?)
Evaluating can be part of the process of checking so that it feeds into the current task as it nears completion (Can you make it better? Are you sure this is right?). It can also feed forward into future tasks (What have you learned that will change what you do next time?).
Oral language interventions - plus 5What do I need to know?•Making learning explicit and encouraging learners to talk about what
they are doing supports their learning.
• Development needs to be related to learners’ current stage of capability so that the emphasis on oral language extends and supports their learning as it relates to the curriculum and their learning.
• Interaction with adults and peers is central to this approach working effectively.
• Technology supported approaches appear to be most effective when technology is used as a medium to encourage collaborative work between pupils, rather than taking a direct teaching or tutoring role.
