You can jump directly into the Platform here and click on the green ‘Start Membership’ button on the left hand side.

Once you have filled out the details on the next page you will hit the paywall. You can either pay straight away and continue your journey, or drop us an email to request an invoice and once that is sorted we will push you through the paywall so you can continue setting up.

QUICK POINT it is worth checking your browser before you jump into the dashboard.

The GEC Platform loves:

Latest Edge, Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Opera

Latest Chrome on Android

Latest Safari on iOS

NOT IE11b please.

Please make sure you have a GEC friendly browser. Get in touch if you need help with this.

When you jump into the Platform, under the heading ‘How much will GEC Membership be?’, please be mindful of your selection here.

If you are an individual State school which happens to be part of a Trust, unless this is a TRUST WIDE Membership, please select the first option ‘A State/ Maintained School’.

If you are a State school which has multiple settings such as primary and secondary or infant and primary and you wish to survey both settings, please select ‘Multi-academy trust/ LAs’ as this will enable you to oversee both settings and collect separate data for each.

If you are a group of independent or international schools, please contact office@thegec.education and we will set you outside of this landing page. Please do not set yourself up as a 'Trust' as this is for state schools only.

If you have any queries about this part, please let us know before you hit ‘continue’ and we can advise you accordingly.

You can jump directly into the Platform here and click on the green ‘Start Membership’ button on the left hand side.

Once you have filled out the details on the next page you will hit the paywall. You can either pay straight away and continue your journey, or drop us an email to request an invoice and once that is sorted we will push you through the paywall so you can continue setting up.

The first thing to note is that the person who signs up to the GEC Platform is in complete control of it. (Oh, the power!)

We refer to this person as the “GEC Champion”.

For more than one setting, MATs or clusters of organisations, this person is called “the GEC Admin Champion”. They oversee the GEC Platform as it is shared and runs across your cluster of settings. They need to have an aerial view of the schools and be able to work across them.

For individual schools, we have mainly Head Teachers as GEC Champions and SLT. For Trusts, GEC Admin Champions can be a Trust Partner Lead or SLT. They then invite individual GEC Champions to lead in their settings.

Security is extremely important to us. As the GEC Champions you (and only you) will have the power to do most things on the GEC Platform. Make sure you are the person who will run this in your setting.

This is through the main GEC dashboard. Through this, you will complete the ‘Self Assessment’ survey for your organisation/s. You can access your data (through your report), before sharing your unique and personalised results with your team/s.

You can also access GEC Action Plans and our GEC Library and share - but control of the main dashboard will be yours. This means you will be the one to invite and close the Staff Surveys, and have access to all the data that your people input.

With this in mind, the GEC Champion should be someone extremely familiar with the diversity, equality & inclusion status, as well as the vision of your organisation/s, AND be able (and empowered) to answer most questions about training, practice, policy and values at the organisation.

Whenever you go to app.thegec.education you will arrive at your dashboard.

Your dashboard will always be the place you arrive, and it will act as your guide, telling you what you can do next.

Membership registration to the GEC Platform - current prices:

STATE or maintained schools, early years settings or FE colleges £450 (+VAT) PER SETTING

PRIVATE, international or non-maintained schools £900 (+VAT) PER SETTING

MAT, LA or cluster of maintained educational settings £450 (+VAT) PER SETTING

Your membership is less than hiring a DEI consultant for the day - as we bring you years of DEI data, training and action for all of your staff as a result of your membership. Not bad, eh?

If you wish to add the Student module this is only £1 a student in a state school and £2 for independent & international schools. See our FAQs on this for more information.

Your membership will last for 12 months from the date you pay via Stripe or from the date you request an invoice from us. You will be alerted within the GEC Platform when it is time to renew - and if you need help we will be there for you!

If you want to sign up for more than one year - and many do! - you can sign up for a maximum of 3 years. Just get in contact with us and we will arrange this for you.

One dashboard that contains your Staff module.

A self-assessment for leadership survey (only)

A staff survey for all staff in your organisation

Bespoke data and analytics

QAed recommendations and coaching for action

The GEC Action Plan for leadership

The GEC Library for all staff

You can add the Student module to this. Let us know if we can help with this.

For our educational settings, we have called this the Staff Survey to reflect the inclusion of volunteer staff in addition to all employed staff.

We would like all of your teaching and learning teams, from your SLT to your SEND support, school business leaders and parent-volunteers, to also get involved and help you with your GEC Platform results. The GEC works with organisations like the ISBL (Institute of School Business Leaders) and Forum Strategy (for CEOs and COOs) to ensure our work works for everyone.

If you are wondering about whether to include contractors or other staff not technically employed by the organisation, as long as it is within IR35 guidelines we are OK with you doing that. Please note that in order to take the Staff Survey , the person must have an email domain (the bit after the @ in your email address) that you enter during set-up. More on this below in the section EMAIL DOMAINS.

Selecting just a section of your staff base may skew the results, and they will not be indicative of the views of the whole workforce - but that is your choice. If a section of the assessment is not applicable (like Curriculum Design with your site team) that does not matter. Just select ‘N/A’ or you will see we have built an opt-out for questions that do not apply to those not teaching or whom do not work with your students or families. The GEC Platform is built to help you learn and from everyone - no excuses.

To hear your staff feel about bringing their whole-self to work or how they feel about inclusion undoubtedly is the key to improving DE&I in your organisation and we are the only ones who will enable you to do this.

You have two choices as far as payment is concerned.

You can either pay by card when you reach the paywall or if you would prefer an invoice please contact us and we can get this sorted for you.

Once your invoice has been processed, we will enable your account and contact you to let you know it’s ready.

This option is available for both our individual and clusters of settings.

GEC partners

If you are a partner organisation, or part of one, we may have bonded and created discounts for your members. If you are unsure, just get in touch with us. If you would like to partner with us - again just shout.

Security is really important to us. We protect your data like it was our own, so as soon as you have paid we will ask you to upgrade your security to 2 factor authentication (2FA).

Passwords are not really enough anymore - they are too easy to get past. Think of 2FA as an extra level of protection for your data - and your account.

Watch this video to learn more about why 2FA is important.

Security is key to our work.

A 2 Factor authentication is only needed to set up the GEC Platform and for the GEC Champion overseeing the platform and data.

Therefore, when you are ready to start, we will ask you to activate 2 Factor Authentication for your account.

You’ll need an authenticator app on your phone for this stage.

If you don’t already have an authenticator app on your phone, head to the Apple App Store or Google Play Store and search for “authenticator app”.

Any will do - but in our team we are equally divided between Microsoft Authenticator and Google Authenticator in terms of our favourites.

Once the authenticator app is successfully installed on your device, look for an option that says “scan QR code”. Choose this option on your app.

Scan the QR code by holding your phone up to the computer screen so that the QR code appears in the square shown on your Authenticator app.

The QR code is the black and white square that looks like the one on the screenshot on the left: (don’t use this QR code though, use the one on your set-up journey)

Once your Authenticator App has scanned your QR code you will be shown some numbers called a “code” or a “one time passcode”.

Type these numbers into the box on your GEC Platform set-up screen.

You have now set up 2 Factor Authentication - Congratulations!

Keep the Authenticator App on your phone because you will need it again!

To maintain great security, the GEC Platform will ask you to enter one of these codes at certain points - usually when you log in from a new device, or if a certain amount of time has passed.

All you’ll need to do is open the app, get a code and enter it in in addition to your password. Easy right?

2 Factor Authentication prevents people sharing logins and passwords - if a new person wants to log into your account, they’d need the code from the Authenticator app on your phone to do so.

If you find that the 2FA is not working, please try the following before contacting our team:

Check you have downloaded the 2FA correctly by referring to the provider of your 2FA application.

If you have tried to set it up before, you may need to scan the QR code again; it creates a new QR code each time until it's set up correctly.

Is the time & timezone set right on your phone/ device? This can be an issue!

Can you try using another app? For example the Google Authenticator, instead of the Microsoft one or the other way around!

If you have multiple accounts within their Microsoft authenticator, for example, you can clear the accounts out. This will ensure that you are definitely providing the 2FA code for the GEC Platform account.

We find that the issue with the 2FA is normally not the issue with the GEC Platform, so please triple check before you contact us.

This stage is about adding a couple more details about your setting.

You can still complete your Self Assessment before completing this step, but it does need to be completed before you can view your results, get your mark, access your the GEC Library and launch your Staff Assessments.

All the questions are relatively straightforward, but we have added a few that might mean you need to speak to someone else in your organisation. We will not share this information.

For GEC Admin Champions of Trust and Clusters, you will need to set up the different locations/ settings you have.

This needs to be done at the start of the subscription.

This means naming the settings and allocating your GEC Champions their own accounts. You will just need their name and an email. They will then complete the Self Assessment surveys.

You will have the ability (and power) to review all of their data, but they can only see their own.

As an Admin Champion, you will need to ensure you have ‘set up your setting’ profile - this is the BLUE box that says ‘Let’s set up your setting’ with ‘Complete profile’ in a white box underneath.

For some members, our ‘Global Equality’ demographics go the extra mile. For other members outside of the UK, they may want to personalise the options.

With the GEC Platform, you can do what suits.

When setting up your profile, you can now select which country you are based in.

The ‘default’ demographics are the United Kingdom’s 9 protected characteristics of the Equality Act (2010), plus single parents rights and socioeconomic status.

If, for legislative purposes, like in France or Germany, you have to edit these, you now can with just a click of a button whilst setting up your profile!

As a cluster of schools you will have this option again. Just get in touch if you are unsure or come to either our weekly ‘Ask Me Anything’ sessions with our founder or the GEC Champion Network meetings. We are always in the wings!

As well as being able to review what your entire staff tell you in the Staff Surveys - more on this soon - you can create groups in addition to the inbuilt demographic filters.

This means you can create ‘groups’ of staff within your organisations in order to review diversity, equity and inclusion data further.

You can do this one layer deep. This means you could review:

Teams of staff - teaching assistants, governors, middle leadership, SLT, site teams

Groups of recruitment tiers - early career teachers, leadership, host and international recruits

Departments - you could include curriculum teams and then your operation teams as two separate areas, but detail curriculum areas as a full list (staff would only be able to chose one)

Pastoral teams vs curriculum

Or you might decide to NOT do this - just to look at staff as one group without this functionality. It is your GEC Platform so you decide!

To change your password click My Account (profile icon in the top right hand corner) which you’ll find on the top right of your dashboard.

Choose a new password, enter it twice, and click Update.

If you forget your password you can email us and we will send you a link, or click this link and follow the instructions to reset your password.

An email domain is the bit after the @ in your email address. For example, at the GEC our email addresses all end in @thegec.org.

In order to take the Staff Survey for your setting, a member of staff must have an email domain (for example @thegec.org) matching one of the ones that you entered during this set-up stage.

This is to make sure that only people from your organisation can complete Staff Surveys.

Some organisations have a few different email domains that they use, if you do, just press “Edit permitted domains” and enter the domains your staff use, without the @ and separated by a comma.

For example if the GEC were to use a few different email domains such as @thegec.org @gec.io and @gec.fr and @globalequality.com, we would need to enter them like this: thegec.org, gec.io, gec.fr, globalequality.com.

If you are the GEC Champion, simply log into app.thegec.education.

Once you are in the dashboard, you will seen an orange box (image, left). Click “Complete Self Assessment”.

Once inside the self assessment survey, your answers are checkbox-only (there is no need to give any written answers or upload anything).

Of course! Just go to your ‘Profile’ icon (top right) and click ‘Permitted Viewers’. This will then ask you to add in the emails of leaders you wish to help you complete this or view results. Easy!

The GEC Self Assessment has 13 sections. Most manage it in fifteen minutes to twenty minutes - so a break time! However if you want to share this and complete as a leadership team, allow an hour.

Remember that the GEC Platform is designed to ‘educate’ - we worked with academics and clinical psychologists to make sure it does - you will find that even your ‘simple’ assessment will ask you questions that you may have not thought of - or had time to reflect on before. Allow time for this and enjoy it!

No, the Self Assessment is save and continue so you can sign out, and come back to it later.

All GEC Self Assessments MUST BE completed by all settings first to access the Staff Assessments.

This is to ensure you get the full snapshot of your organisation. Individual settings will NOT be able to access Staff Assessments until all of your settings have completed the Self Assessments. Champions of individual settings will see the Self Assessment on their dashboards. When they have completed this, the SA will disappear from their dashboard - as they have completed it.

The Admin Champion can then close the Self Assessments once everyone has completed them. Admin Champions can review the status of all of your settings on your dashboard so you will know which stage they are all at. Once completed and closed, you will be able to access the results across your settings - and individual Champions will be able to see THEIR OWN Self Assessment results.

It is at this point the Admin Champion can share the Staff Assessments to all of your staff across all of your sites at the same time.

The Self Assessment, Staff Surveys and Student Surveys can be completed at any time within the 12 months of your membership. They have to be completed in this order. The completed Self Assessment ‘unlocks’ the Staff Survey. The completed Staff Survey ‘unlocks’ the Student Surveys.

We would suggest you get started ASAP - you may even decide to do the GEC Platform more than once in a year to get a baseline and a comparison. Your GEC Platform Membership, your call.

Once you’ve completed your Self Assessment you will get access to our GEC Library, the Staff & Student Surveys and your Membership Mark.

Certain questions on the Self Assessment have a small purple “i’ icon on them. hover over this icon to see a short explainer, which will clarify the question.

If you still have questions just click the green chat button (see image below) in the bottom right and chat with us.

Make sure you tell us the section the question is in - and you can even copy and paste the question in if you wish! Otherwise email us office@thegec.org and a member of the team will assist you as soon as we can.

Your staff will have this function when they do their surveys too!

If you want to save and exit the app before you have finished, just click the black “Save Progress” button in the bottom left hand corner of the Self Assessment.

Once you have completed all the mandatory questions, just click the purple “Submit Assessment” button in the bottom right hand corner of the Self Assessment.

In order to submit your Self Assessment survey, you must complete all the mandatory questions.

If you click the blue “Submit Assessment” button before you have completed all the mandatory questions on the Self Assessment, the Platform will automatically take you back to the first section that is not complete. For example, in the image on the left, you would be taken to section 4.

Once you have completed all the mandatory questions, just click the blue “Submit Assessment” button in the bottom right hand corner of the Self Assessment.

No, the Self Assessment is not anonymous.

The Self Assessment is an assessment for your leaders within the organisation. You know you are completing this so there is no need for it to be anonymous.

The Self Assessment is an important way to baseline where each location is on its journey; it should be the beginning of a conversation as a leadership team - who is doing what? What can we share between locations? What can we learn from each other?

(The Staff Assessment and Student Surveys, however, are anonymous).

You can see SECTION NUMBER.

To the right of that is the SECTION TITLE.

The colourful blocks are YOUR SELF ASSESSMENT ANSWERS. These are the answers you (and your viewers if applicable) gave when filling in the Self Assessment.

All RAG rated. Green is ‘Yes’, Amber is ‘In Progress’ and Red is ‘No’.

The blue blocks are questions you answered ‘I don’t know” to.

In your full results, you may see flags.

A flag shown on the rolled up (not expanded) section is telling you that there’s something you need to see inside the section.

A flag shown next to an individual question denotes an important area for DE&I, that has scored negatively - or positively - in your results. These will be rolled out over the next few weeks.

Flags are shown in both Self Assessments and Staff Surveys.

‘Important’ orange Flags indicate something you should address now. These are where one demographic answered negatively or a large % of all respondents answered negatively.

‘DEIJ Achievement’ green cups will indicate this is an area you should celebrate - woohoo! This is only on the Staff Assessments and means a single demographic gave you 100% positive responses. Well done you!

We are looking for Members for case studies - so please do tell us!

Once your Self Assessment/s and Staff Surveys are complete you will see a summary of your results on your dashboard.

The RAG (red/ amber/ green) rated summary will show how many “yes” (green) “no” (red), “in progress” (amber) answers you had for each question in that section.

Click the “View Full Results” button to see your full Self Assessment or Staff Survey results.

Again, yes - you can share your results by clicking the “Manage Viewers” button in the top right hand corner of your results. You can do this with your Self Assessment surveys, your Staff and Students.

When you share the results you will also share access to the GEC Action Plan and the GEC Library - you are on your way!