Statement

We are about to start 2024/25. For some this is business as usual, but we wanted to stop, reflect and mark this time in education.

The scenes that have played out on our screens and in real life, featuring faceless hate crimes have deeply impacted us, our colleagues, our friends and our families. Words alone cannot express how saddened, angered and worried we feel following the recent riots. But we must hold onto the hope that positive collective action will enact real change.

The GEC is all about collaboration and collective action. We are a group of global educators with a shared vision for positive and intentional inclusion in our schools, for extraordinary inclusion in all classrooms. As a result, we stand shoulder to shoulder with our Collective circle of experts that have been impacted by this hatred and are very much here to support our school communities as we enter into the new academic year. 

Hope is a key driver of our actions. We at the GEC see opportunity instead of challenge and we are hopeful. Hopeful that collective action will drive necessary and immediate change so that no-one experiences this again; and that leaders now prioritise safety, belonging, well-being and inclusion, celebrating the diversity across our country and sector.

An assembly will not ‘fix’ this. But the two parts of the GEC can help educate you and your community:

1. The GEC Circle is our in-house 400-strong expertise, made up from the best in inclusion, diversity and well-being. Our experts are all in education, from academics and authors to grass-roots communities and organisations who want to change the dial. We work across protected characteristics and communities with lived experience for collective action.

2. The GEC Platform is our award-winning platform, being used by hundreds of schools across 30 countries. With our platform at the core, through data, analytics and an academically tested framework, we support schools to better understand and improve their culture. Our goal is to help create and maintain a safe and simple process to make ordinary classrooms extraordinarily inclusive.

Who is the Circle? The biggest* directory of educational experts globally, founded by Nic Ponsford (former teacher now doctoral researcher ).

*Now 400+ strong! 

We urge you to start with the Racism in Society: Resources for Schools published by our Collective experts, the BAMEed Network, with Zahara Chowdhury of School Should Be and Ruth Sinhal of Project FREE- Connecting Communities C.I.C - and other incredible experts in this network.

We want to sincerely thank BAMEed for coming together to help us all and ask that you also signpost others to this work.

These excellent resources can be used in the first instance to support both our fight against racist and Islamophobic violence and intimidation. 

Next in our GEC Circle is CareStart, a policy, research and charitable organisation.

We love that CareStart use their expertise to support wider society, with a special focus on ethnic minorities and Muslim communities, by taking a culturally-sensitive approach to mental health, rehabilitation and social mobility.

They have created this excellent workbook for primary aged children to learn about mental health, emotions and wellbeing.

We hope it helps educators parents and carers to support their young people to better understand what good mental health means, especially at this moment in time.

This free workbook can be used in any educational setting, including schools, religious institutions, youth clubs, and at home. Download the workbook  at carestart.co.uk/resources 

We wanted to know how to educate ourselves beyond the Circle and could not find a centralised library of content - so we made one.

Did you know that the GEC now has the largest list of materials for your bookshelves and playlists?

In our ever-growing, freely accessible and open to all GEC KnowHow,  you can check out our 2022/23 and 2024/25 collections!

COMING SOON - We will shortly be partnering with Mary Myatt and the Teachers Collection to offer a range of lesson plans with diversity recommendations by the Circle.

Please join our online communities to hear the latest news on this:  via LinkedIn, X, or Instagram and follow our founder Nic Ponsford on LinkedIn and X

Want to find discounts to the best out there? Us too.

The GEC Pinboard is where we collate solutions and offers from the DEI experts in our Collective for our GEC Members.

The aim is to provide an easy to browse list of resources that will help GEC members - our schools and colleges and their families - to find support, learn and to build their own expertise.

To support your work now and help you work directly with members of the Circle, we are also opening four of our GEC Pinboard exclusive offers - beyond our members!

Votes for Schools Firstly, GEC Circle organisation, Votes for Schools asked 35,000 students about Windrush. Consider these results and how you can embed belonging and social capital into your curriculum over the next 3 years. Visit the GEC Pinboard for a 50% discount to Votes for School services for your school and trust now!

Solutions Not Sides We also recommend watching this short film to find out more about the work of Circle experts, Solutions Not Sides.  Any teacher (not GEC Members) who would like to book in a school session, please visit solutionsnotsides this website to book a workshop (and say we sent you!) 

IESE Membership Also on our GEC Pinboard, is the Institute for Educational & Social Equity. The IESE is a specialist Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Institute. They are the only independent Tertiary level institution of its kind in the UK. Our Founder Nic Ponsford is a Fellow of Data Sciences at IESE and has co-written and delivered the recent module on EDI Metrics with the team. If you are a leader in education and want to become a member take a look at the Pinboard or their website. 

Happier Every Chapter Last, by not least, we also have a subscription discount for the wonderful Happier Every Chapter on the GEC Pinboard.

To embed a solid global outlook through reading, these books are aimed at 0-14 year old readers and the origins of this family business is something to be read in itself!

Read this GEC Blog for more ideas and six books to diversify your bookcase by Circle speaker and founder of  Happier Every Chapter, Ndah Mbawa. The time has never been better to authentically diversify your bookshelves and look at how you can embed inclusive for all of your students whilst they are at your school or trust.

For the first time, access for all to GEC Platform resources.

Normally these this fantastic content pieces are only available to members of the GEC Platform.

However, we want everyone to be able to access high quality training and education materials so are releasing these four resources to coincide with the start of 2024/25 with the aim of supporting your work through ours.

First up is one of our ‘Fight for Inclusion’ webinars - ‘Boys to Men’ with Tommy Hatto, Andrew Bernie Bernard and Albert Adeyemi. These panel discussions brought together experienced keynote speakers, authors and experts in our Circle, to look at the wider aspects of masculinity for boys and men. At a time where many of our young men will have been impacted intersectionally this summer, this is a fantastic chance to get up close and personal on a range of aspects impacting our boys to men.

Another Circle expert are Powerful Histories and they have given us permission to share this powerful historical overview of racism in the UK.

An insightful and accessible resource to use with staff and students alike. You can view this 21 minute keynote here illustrating the ‘History of Racism’, recorded exclusively for the GEC.

In these next two GEC Platform short films, we have a range of lived experience videos from our Circle of experts. 

In this first 12-minute film, Dawn Moreton-Young explores ‘How to Talk About Race’ to take the taboo out, understand privilege and get it right.

Dawn also shares ‘Introduction to Bias’ . Consider how this relates to your workplace, your parents and carers and your students in relation to coming back to school this autumn. Understanding the effects of bias and how this is experienced by those that both have privilege and do not is important. If you want more support with lived experience outside of your own, please get in touch with us so we can help you get this right. The first step is to audit the voices of your school and community. 

COMING SOON - GEC Playbook on Anti-Racism

(We will be updating this in real time to share resources as soon as they are available.)

So, now that we’ve shared some amazing resources and insights, it’s time to ask yourself if you are measuring anti-racism, discrimination and classism in your school or trust? Are you really prioritising inclusion and well-being this academic year?

The GEC Platform is a cloud-based solution that brings together a range of ways that schools, colleges, trusts and regions can audit their staff and students on racism, safety and social capital before accessing coaching recommendations by our Circle, an action plan for leaders, and the GEC Library. Our library has CPD and lesson resources on anti-racism, race and ethnicity, socio-economic status, belonging, social mobility and justice that can be shared across your community as part of your membership. 

We offer a Founders Subsidy Initiative for state schools. We will be offering a further 10% discount for all schools and trusts as a means of making our award-winning work even more accessible to you. 

Just contact us via the website and quote #InclusionRevolution before 1st October. 

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