Teaching in a diverse Scotland - increasing and retaining minority ethnic teachers: 3 years on

Annex C – Areas now covered in Education Scotland's Professional and Leadership Programmes

Education Scotland offer professional learning that supports the development of anti-racist practice at all levels of teaching, works with partners to deliver this professional learning and also signposts further learning across the system.

Teachers

The Teacher Leadership Programme (TLP) offers anti-racist workshops to participants on Critical Race Theory and Decolonising the Curriculum with these sessions taking place in December 2020 and then recorded and available to watch anytime. Sessions were led by members of SAMEE (Scottish Association of Minority Ethnic Educators). A TedTalk on Cultural Intelligence is now part of the TLP 20/21 Pre-programme reading.

As part of the Covid-19 Education Recovery Group (CERG) Workstream 6 coaching and mentoring offer, Education Scotland and the General Teaching Council for Scotland are working with SAMEE in three ways. The first, to deliver their bespoke Leadership and Mentoring Programme for Black and minority ethnic educators. This programme provides safe, positive spaces for Black and minority ethnic educators to acknowledge their experiences, affirm their skills and competencies, define actions to support career progression and develop into race-cognisant advocates. The second area of this work includes peer-to peer-mentoring. The aim of this is to prepare and support Black and minority ethnic teachers who have undertaken the Leadership and Mentoring programme to mentor fellow teachers, building capacity within the profession. This work involves working closely with Black and minority ethnic educators and white senior leaders to support their learning in the area of race equality and professional equity. The third area involves working with Black and minority ethnic teachers in mentoring through preparation for promotion to leadership roles.

Post Probationers

The Stepping Stones programme, part of the same CERG package of support and aimed at teachers in their first four years post-probation, includes a workshop on culturally-responsive pedagogy.

Middle leaders

Participants in the Middle Leaders Leading Change programme engage in self-reflection around cultural intelligence, exploring work by Julia Middleton, a noted expert and campaigner for the progression of diverse leaders in a civil society. Participants also engage in reading around the importance of diversity from a leadership perspective and plan how they are going to take the leadership of cultural intelligence and anti-racism forward in future.

Aspiring school leaders

A revision and refresh of core learning modules of the Into Headship programme in 2020/21 will be undertaken with Black and minority ethnic educators to ensure it cover intercultural and anti-racist professional learning. This means from 2021/22 all practitioners obtaining the Standard for Headship will have undergone anti-racist professional learning.

Professor Rowena Arshad provides an annual lecture to new Into Headship participants at their conference on race and 'Leading for Equality.'

School leaders

The Excellence in Headship Programme offers 'Learn' sessions for headteachers on Socially Just Leadership, designed and delivered by Khadija Mohammed, Chair of SAMEE. One session was delivered in 2020 with the remaining two sessions planned for 2021.

A new extension of the Excellence in Headship programme (EIH Stretch) facilitates headteachers to undertake collaborative enquiry. Six headteachers have elected to focus on equalities and diversity.

From the 2021/22 academic session, Excellence in Headship will be developing a new core element of the programme around cultural identity.

System leaders

The Evolving Systems Thinking Programme has the core focus of Leadership for school and System improvement. This work is based on and encompasses the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion with a strong focus on the ethical stance of school and system leaders as advocates for every child, young person and their families in our system.

Specific aspects of the work covered include:

• exploring the roles of school and system leaders in terms of processes, providing and aligning resources, developing leadership capacity and ensuring productive relationships
• understanding effective practices at school and system level
• exploring in-depth the concepts of emotional and cultural intelligence
• through the online professional learning resource that sits on the Education Scotland website we have recently posted a guest blog from the Anti-Racist Educator site and signposted further reading.

The Education Scotland Race Equality Wakelet pulls together a wide range of resources for professional learning for all staff, including those supporting learners.