In order to get set up with the Students Module, you will have to already have the GEC Membership.

This means you will already be on-boarded and have access to your dashboard.

These FAQs will help you with questions that we think you may have about the Student Module. If you still have questions, please get in touch with us here as making D&I easy is what we are all about!

Student FAQs

Student Module - Action Plan & GEC Library

  • The GEC Action Plan is the bridge between your results and your actions for students - just as it is with your Staff.

    Each question and statement in the GEC Student survey report has between 1-3 ‘GEC Recommendations’ for your organisation. These have been QAed by our team of DEIJ experts and our GEC Collective. These are personalised to each statement and are written with action in mind.

    You will know these are focused on your students as each one is titled ‘Students - ‘. This will make it easy to identify on your Action Plan.

    By selecting a ‘Recommendation’ you can add this to your GEC Action Plan. We have spilt this into four areas:

    Communication - Collaboration - Education - Practice & Policy

    You can personalise this (dates and customise notes and text) and tick off as completed when you are happy with it.

    The GEC Action Plan will run over your renewal so you can track this year on year.

  • Just as we have for staff, we are creating materials for students. As we pilot the Student Module, some of these will be in the Library - and we will also make an exclusive area for Members who have signed up to this module.

    We have powered up the GEC Library to be the ultimate DEI hub - and we will be adding materials for lessons and assemblies throughout 2023-24.

    We are delighted to now be able to share the GEC Library with all of your staff - so they can share with students.

    How? On the GEC Platform dashboard, you will see a second ‘Magic Link’. All of your staff will be able to access the GEC Library from one browser on one of their devices (so get them to decide in advance). We suggest they use their staff laptop or tablet where possible. The GEC Champion or GEC Admin Champion can share this via an email. Our template is here:

    Dear <Colleague name>,

    <This setting> would like to share the GEC Library with you!

    What does that mean?

    The GEC Library houses the building blocks to education and training from the Global Equality Collective.

    What do I do?

    You need to choose one browser and device to use for the GEC Library. We advise you use your staff laptop/ tablet. You will get one login so choose a device that you find easy to read from.

    Then all you need to do is paste <this link> into your browser.

    Do I need to focus on anything?

    Yes - as an organisation we want you to focus on <insert topic or resource> first. We will be discussing this <date of meeting>.

    or

    No, have a general look about and <the GEC Champion> will be in touch soon with what we are focusing on as an organisation and communicating the time we are giving you to do this.

    What happens next?

    We are a GEC member and we are using the GEC Platform to both to find inclusion and sustainability gaps and close them, and celebrate what we are smashing. Enabling you, our staff, to learning in this area, from observed lived experiences to the most up to date research, reading lists to webinars, will help all of our stakeholders in changing the world for the better here at <insert organisation name>.

    We cannot wait to see where this takes us!

    From <GEC Champion>

  • You can get in contact with us directly office@thegec.education or come to a GEC Champion Network Meeting and share your thoughts! We co-design our work with you so are always open to ideas! We will also offer feedback sessions to Members who are in our first cohort for the Student Module so check your inbox too!

  • Again just get in touch. We will send you the details we need and then create a bespoke webpage for you, which will go into the GEC Library and we will put across our socials (if you want us to!).

    Here are some examples for you!

Bringing in the Student Module

  • If you are just email office@thegec.education, we will sort out your invoice. We will ask you to then complete this form so we have the correct details for you. Once this is done, we will then add this for your dashboard.

    The FAQs can then help you get started. It basically follows the same way of the Staff surveys, Action Plan and use of the GEC Library. We will be reviewing how we share exclusive materials with you as we develop. You can hear about this in our membership sessions or we will email you the details. If you are in doubt, just email us office@thegec.education and we will help!

  • If you want to have both the Staff and Student modules added to your GEC Platform please follow these easy steps:

    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.

  • Basically yes! You will share your ‘magic link’ with your students in a way that makes sense to your students. For some this will be an email to ‘All Students’, for others you might add this to a OneNote or Google Classroom or digital book for your students to access (with or without supervision). For others, you may ask a member of staff to supervise and upload to an single device. The choice is yours! It also have to be completed before the end of your annual membership.

  • Yes!

  • Yes. BUT these are our ‘secret sauce’. These can be made available to GEC Champions, but please remember that your organisation has signed up to our Terms and Conditions so no sharing outside of your setting! We are allowing you to review so you can be ready to share with students or discuss with parents.

    Please be assured that we have tested and validated these questions with early years to post16 experts, teachers, school leaders, GEC Champions and the students themselves!

    However, we know some of you might want to look over. They are here - but you will need the password as it is a restricted page. Just email office@thegec.education and you will get access.

  • There are 6 standards in the survey. They will take no more than 2-3 minutes per section. We would advise you allow:

    30 minute activity for supervised (EY - Lower KS2 & supervised SEND students). This can be carried out 1:1 for students or in small groups.

    10-15 minute activity for unsupervised (Upper KS2-KS5). You can use a lesson time of 40-60 minutes to introduce it and discuss afterwards, or they can complete for home learning.

    As this is the launch of this new module, we would welcome feedback on how long it takes your students in case we need to update this. Surveys can also be used with teaching toolkit for RSE & Citizenship lessons or tutor/ circle time.

    Please allow time for you to set this up on your devices and organise your students in advance of completing the surveys. If you are allowing students to complete this at home, we suggest you allow then a 30 activity slot - although it will not take them this long!

  • Ensure that you to stagger the roll out to your students either by class or by Key Stage over 1 day or several days. This is to ensure the Platform is not overloaded at any one time. Any queries please contact office@thegec.education

  • You will be given a ‘magic link’ by your GEC Champion. You can then share this with students or have loaded onto a device for them to use. As the survey is anonymous they do not need to use an email or anything when signing up for it.

  • This is the world’s first DEI Platform for education. It includes hyper-diversity with full intersectional data. Our platform’s unique intersectional analysis capabilities will tell you which groups of students you are doing well for and which not so that you can focus your efforts where they’ll make the biggest impact.

    This has been designed by students from around the world, from 50 different nurseries, schools and colleges as well as the University of Goldsmiths London and our Global Equality Collective. We are keen to get their feedback and learn how this best works for you all as we launch this.

  • Understanding that diversity and inclusion leads to disclosures around safeguarding and mental health, we would advise that your staff and students are aware of your designated safeguarding leads, mental health professionals and the pathways of support they might have.

    Make sure these staff are known to students in advance of them participating in the surveys and have them supervising/ closely monitoring so they can be proactive with support if and when required. Your students’ safety is of paramount importance here.

    We also suggest the following Global Equality Collective friends (mainly UK-based):

    Captains and Poets - paid wellbeing curriculum support

    Compass - mental health support for schools

    Childline - free services for young people - under 12s here

    Kooth - mental health for students aged 10 years upwards

    NSPCC offer 10 minutes of free training for all adults here

    Mind - mental health support for all

    Place to Be - school based mental health support

    The Safeguarding Company - for all safeguarding stakeholders

    Working Families - for your families

    Also add your local community services to this. We advise you share this with parents and carers too.

    If we have left anyone off, please get in touch so we can update our list.

  • You can share our webpage with parents and give them the details of the sections. We also advise that you inform your families and students of the outcomes of this module too so full transparency is given, in the best interests of your students. Here is an example email/letter template that might be of use to you:

    Dear Parent / Guardian,

    Anonymous survey about diversity and inclusion for children and young people

    Our school/ Trust and the Global Equality Collective (GEC) would like to find out about how we create safe classrooms and a sense of belonging for our students. This will be in the form of a short anonymous online survey.

    The information collected will be used to:

    * Provide a report to our school to help us understand student ‘voice’ here and what we can do to support them

    * Help the GEC create more teaching materials to educate us in how to make our classrooms more inclusive for all of our students

    Our school has agreed to take part in this research as we want to listen to your child’s feedback about their time at school.

    Your child’s class has been selected to take part in the survey. This involves completing a short online survey which will take about 15-20 minutes and will be completed during the school day at a suitable time arranged by your child’s teacher/ tutor (between ADD DATES).

    Your child will have an individual online questionnaire, but they will be completing it in a time and place where other children from their class will also be taking part.

    Or

    Your child will have an individual online questionnaire, but they will be completing it in a time and place where away from children from their class so we can give them 1:1 support with this.

    We will provide each child with information in advance to explain what the research is about and what the survey will be like. We will also share the findings with students and tell them how their views will help us improve our school.

    If your child does not wish to take part, they can tell their teacher this on the day.

    If you do not want your child to take part in this survey, please let me know by emailing me on GEC CHAMPION EMAIL.

    If you are happy for your child to take part, you do not need to do anything.

    The anonymous surveys are hosted by the GEC, a research organisation. The GEC will store all information securely and keep it confidential.

    Yours sincerely

    NAME

    GEC CHAMPION

  • The sections have all been designed to understand and capture your student voice when it comes to inclusion and belonging.

    The six standards are named:

    Wellbeing - students will see ‘My Wellbeing’

    Culture - students will see ‘Our Culture’

    Representation - students will see ‘Representation’

    Safety - students will see ‘My Safety’

    Diversity - students will see ‘Diversity’

    Inclusion- students will see ‘Inclusion’

  • No. It will do this automatically - but they can ‘hit’ save if they wish.

    They do need to submit the responses so make sure they do this. They will then be logged out of the survey.

  • We are keen to get their consent to do this. This has been part of the design process and we are acting in the best interests of the child/ young people. Although we know that you will ‘ask’ them to do this, we want them to know that they are giving their permission to be involved in this. We suggest that you speak to them in advance about the ethics of consent, GDPR and data protection.

    This can be achieved alongside:

    ICO Children’s Code

    The Rights of the Child

    Once your students have consented to be part of this, they will see the first section (‘My Wellbeing’ standards) where they can then respond.

  • We have used two forms of responses for students. These are the same as the Staff surveys. These are:

    Likert scores - 5 responses from Strongly Agree - Agree - Neither Agree or Disagree - Disagree - Strongly Disagree

    Tickbox - they can tick as many as they like and add a comment in the ‘Other’ if they wish to add more

    Warning - these are the only comment box inclusion in the survey. Students will be answering anonymously and we will not be able to tell you who has written comments as we have designed these to be completely anonymous. If you feel that students may abuse this functionality, we suggest these students are supervised.

  • Yes. But they can use the responses to illustrate a wide range of beliefs and experiences.

  • All of the questions here have GEC quality-assured recommendations to help your school leader implement change in your organisation.

    Please speak to your GEC Champion to learn more about this. We also have a suite of diversity and inclusion in the GEC Library that can help you with further training on the terminology used here.

  • We know that some of you will want to understand the questions in advance. Some of you might want to teach up to it and ensure they all know what the words and ideas mean.

    Remember, participation in the surveys is meant as a ‘snapshot’ so ideally no additional lessons will be been provided to ‘help’ students with these questions. This will then be an authentic gauge of their understanding and viewpoints. However if you do decided to teach this - we cannot stop you!

  • We have designed this with early years and SEND experts. We wanted this to be a flexible set of questions for all students - and the feedback from students in our pilot groups was that these questions worked! However, we know that some of you might want to help more with the terms. That is fine! With some of your young students or students with additional needs, if you are supervising their responses you may wish to choose further age appropriate language to discuss their options. Or look at other ways to communicate. Please get in touch if you need assistance with this. We are also working on making this as accessible as possible.

    If this is something you would like to assist us with please email office@thegec.education

  • You know your classes best - so the option is yours. They have been designed for younger students to work with an adult or older student to assist them - and older students to work independently. If you do decided to do this a class, and go through one question at a time, we would suggest you allow at least 30 minutes to go through the questions (that is about 5 minutes a section).

    Students only have to select one of our beautiful buttons to respond, but you may want time to all discuss how they have answered.

    When they do finish their questions, only the GEC Champion will be able to see the data - once they have closed all of the surveys. They will then choose how they want to share the outcomes with you.

  • No. You do not have to. We would suggest that you get year groups to do this on the same day as they are bound to discuss this in groups. For younger students you may choose a number of weeks to enable your staff to go through this with all of their classes. If you allow teachers around 15-20 minutes a student, they can help around 4 an hour. This is also an activity that parent volunteers and support staff can help your students with. Or it can be done as a home learning activity with parents and carers.

    As this is a pilot we are looking to you to help us with feedback on this. We would urge you to encourage students to do a ‘light touch’ response rather than spend too long on each statement. If they are not sure, they can select ‘Neither Agree or Disagree’.

  • There are ‘i’ buttons that they can hover over and it will help them understand the standards more. We also advise that you have safeguarding leads, main teachers and adults on hand if you feel they might need this. Once you have reviewed the content, this is your decision and responsibility as an organisation.

  • Recommendations will be add to your results, just like the Staff module offers.

  • We have resources in the GEC Platform to assist with this. Please refer to our GEC Playbooks.

    We will be working on a Glossary with our pilot schools and Trusts. If you would like your students to help create glossaries for us to share with other GEC Members please share them with office@thegec.education