Inclusion Strategy

BDAT Inclusion Strategy – October 2020

Inclusion: “understanding everyone is equal, without exception, valuing and encouraging diversity and difference and proactively seeking to learn from others.” (BDAT 2016)

COVID-19 was not the only story to hit the press and profoundly mark our lives in 2020. All of us were affected by the tragic circumstances surrounding the death of George Floyd and the spotlight it put on both the unintentional and intentionally systematic racism which runs through modern society. It is a stark reminder of the inequity and bias which affects all of us, and all of our students, to different extents and in different ways in every-day life. It has prompted us as a Trust to reconsider the importance, effectiveness and sustainability of how we tackle issues like racism and other types of discrimination across all areas of our MAT and within each of our schools.

BDAT is a Trust which is proud to have strong underpinning Christian values which influence everything we do – from how we teach, to how we work together to how we operate our business. BDAT has a Trust value of inclusion which we define as “understanding everyone is equal, without exception, valuing and encouraging diversity and difference and proactively seeking to learn from others.”

Throughout this year we are committed to ensuring that we unpick this value and really ensure it is embedded across what we do as a Trust and our family of schools. What is clear is that we need to ensure that inclusion runs through all our practice; from how we teach a broad balanced curriculum to our students; to how we recruit, train and retain our staff to how we treat each other every day. Inclusion also needs to cover the full range of protected characteristics including gender, ethnicity and religion for instance. Our approach needs to build and learn from the contexts and demographics of the schools we serve. Most importantly everything we do needs to be meaningful, impactful and sustainable.

Objectives

• To raise the profile of the importance of inclusion, equality and diversity in everything we do so that difference is celebrated rather than discriminated against.
• To ensure that inclusive practices are embedded in everything we do
• To ensure that our communities, our Trust Board, our staff, parents, and students have confidence that we hold inclusion as a central core value of the Trust and understand the importance we place in doing so.

Ultimately, we need to be abundantly proud of the communities we represent bringing together the rich tapestry of the BDAT family of schools to ensure every one of our students grows up excited to be unique, special, and different. 

Click here to read the full BDAT Inclusion Strategy