Equality and Diversity - Key Stage 5

Pride Month Toolkit

1st June marks the start of Pride Month, where the LGBTQIA+ community is celebrated across the UK and all over the world.

Pride Month is a time for all of us to reaffirm our support for LGBTQIA+ people, as well as an opportunity to raise awareness of the ongoing issues and injustices faced by the community.

It is important for pupils to feel that their school or college is a safe place to be their authentic selves, where they are encouraged to explore their identities free from judgement. This month is a great opportunity to review your existing polices to ensure your setting is LGBTQIA+ inclusive, and to run activities or lessons exploring and celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community.

In this toolkit, we’re sharing free resources for pupils and staff to celebrate Pride Month and to think about positive changes that can be made in your school or college.

Click here to download the Secondary & FE toolkit

Alphabets in Stonehouse 

Alphabets in Stonehouse are part of The Diversity Trust. They manage specialist LGBTQ+ youth services in South Gloucestershire, including wellbeing support. 

Guidance for maintained schools and academies in England on provision for transgender pupils

Guidance has been published to support maintained schools and academies in England to offer appropriate and supportive provision for transgender pupils.

New case law is ever emerging so provision for transgender pupils should be revisited regularly.

Use this link to read the guidance material. 

NEU - Trans Inclusion Toolkit 

NEU - Supporting Trans and Gender Questioning students

Click here to access the advice from the National Education Union aims to help school and college staff support gender variant or questioning students in the educational environment.

Equali-tea

Hold an Equali-tea and raise awareness and vital funds for LGBT equality.

Visit the website to find out more about holding a Equali-tea. 

Download a free Equali-tea fundraising pack here.

Gay Glos

Gay Glos provides support services to Gloucestershire's LGBTQ+ community. They have youth groups, support groups for parents (run by parents of trans gender children), and work in schools and colleges to deliver training to staff and talk to pupils. Gay Glos also works with refugees and asylum seekers who are trans gender. 

Diversity Role Models

Dynamic charity whose vision is a world where everyone embraces diversity and can thrive. Our mission is to promote understanding and acceptance of individual differences and end LGBTQ+ bullying in schools.

• Pause, Rethink, Rewind, BeKind - New Free EDI Classroom Resource: The Diversity Role Models Upstander Animation Series
• Video on Anti LGBTQ+ Anti Bullying Schools Workshops 

Launching the NEW DfE Funded 'Embracing Difference, Ending Bullying' Research & Impact Report 2024 - revealing the need to bridge the gap between students, parents, carers and school staff to transform anti-bullying strategies in schools. View the report here. 

Gender and Identity Bullying - Guidance for Church of England Schools

The Valuing All God's Children publication provides guidance for Church of England schools on challenging homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying. 

Gendered Intelligence

Gendered Intelligence is a charity which exists to increase understandings of gender diversity and improve trans people's quality of life. It is driven by a host of highly skilled freelance workers who are facilitators, practitioners, youth workers, mentors, writers, researchers, trainers, educators, artists and designers, cultural commentators, social media-ites and all round talented folk. The charity's website provides a wealth of services, resources and links for young people, educators and families. 

LGBT in Britain - Home and Communities

Stonewall's LGBT in Britain - Home and Communities research report highlights deep challenges for the LGBT community, with alarming levels of racism experienced by black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) LGBT people, and a significant proportion of trans people, bi people, LGBT disabled people and LGBT people of faith feeling excluded within the LGBT community.

LGBTQ+ Education 

Stonewall produces toolkits and resources for schools to support inclusive LGBTQ+ education. 

Their introduction to supporting LGBT children and young people is suitable for all schools, colleges and settings and offers support in creating an LGBT inclusive environment, working with parents and carers, and supporting individual LGBT children and young people in mainstream and specialist settings.

Next steps in LGBT inclusive education: celebrating difference and developing understanding is a resource, aimed at schools, colleges and settings that have already started work on LGBT inclusion and who are looking to really embed the work. This resource includes an extensive policy section, guidance on creating an LGBT inclusive curriculum, support on working with parents and carers, as well as highlighting the importance of ensuring that a wide range of LGBT people are represented and celebrated in the school, college or setting.

Stonewall offer schools, colleges and settings the resources they need to support children and young people with SEND as part of their LGBT inclusive approach. Click to download the ‘It’s OK’ symbol supported posters or easy read information sheets. 

Trans Inclusive Schools 

Top tips to make your school or college more trans inclusive:

• Work with the LGBT young people in your school/college. Listen to them and be led by them as far as possible.

• Celebrate difference through special events such as LGBT History Month in February. Make sure you highlight trans people and issues relating specifically to the trans community during this month.

• Utilise Stonewall’s bank of resources. They are available free of charge on our website and can be downloaded.

• Display posters such as those made for the Trans Day of Visibility to improve the visibility of trans people in your school.

• Create an equality group to run your assemblies on LGBT History Month.

• Review your school’s policies, do they cover transphobia and transphobic bullying as a specific issue and state that instances will not be tolerated? Your anti-bullying policy could give examples of transphobic language so staff and students better understand.

• Make your policies explicit about following the Equality Act 2010 and include this in your home-school agreement so that parents are aware of how you support all pupils in your school.

• Create a checklist for staff to follow should a student disclose to them that they are trans or questioning their gender. This could include such things as asking how the student would like to be referred to (name and pronoun) and whether the student feels they need any additional support.

• Invite trans speakers in to your school/college. Joining the Stonewall School Champion programme will give you access to trained LGBT speakers and you can request a trans speaker if you wish.

• Review your curriculum and identify where trans people and their experiences could be included. Ideally this should go beyond PSHE and RSE curricula, as great opportunities to discuss and explore trans issues could come in English, art or drama.

• Make information on trans issues easily available to students by creating a trans specific section on your LGBT notice board. Signpost to local and national trans youth services such as Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence.

Updated Advice from DfE on Recording Pupils' Gender

In exceptional circumstances, a school may be unsure as to which gender should be recorded for a particular pupil. Where this occurs, gender is recorded according to the wishes of the pupil and / or parent.

(5.2.9 Pupil gender, page 61, School census guide 2016 to 2017, Version 1.5)

A few Education Champions have had queries from schools about recording information on pupils who have transitioned or are in the process of transitioning, and have contacted the DfE to see if the above applies in such situations. According to the DfE it does.

So the advice from the DfE is now to record children and young people’s chosen gender on all data management systems according to the above guidance.

Currently Capita requires legal confirmation when changes are made to a pupil’s legal name, so names have to be changed by deed poll (although SIMS and other school management information systems have a preferred name option which should be used in circumstances where a name has not been legally changed). Whilst they state that birth gender cannot be changed, SIMS does not request legal documentation to support this change.

Stonewall GHLL Training - PowerPoint

Stonewall GHLL Training - Video

Stonewall Inclusive Curriculum Guide

Tech Abuse: Gender and IoT (G-IoT) Resource List 

This resource list is intended as supplementary material to better inform and guide victims of technology-facilitated abuse as well as those working with them.

It lists organisations which produce guidelines and advice, and highlights known methods of abuse which perpetrators may exploit.

The resource list has been developed by a socio-technical research team at University College London.

Websites and Resources of Interest 

• Family Lives - Formerly 'Bullying UK', provides information, support and services to young people and their families on a range of topics. 

• Feminist Current  - A blog providing a unique perspective on pop culture, politics, current events, sexuality, gender, and many other issues that are often underrepresented or misrepresented by most media sources. An interesting and thought-provoking blog post is 'Why I'm Raising My Kids to Know Their Sex, Not Their Gender'. 

• 'I'm Just Me' - A short video suitable for Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5: As Jaz and Charlie make a final attempt to keep their relationship alive, one of them comes out as non-binary (meaning they don’t identify as male or female), sparking a conversation that will change them both forever. 

• Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) - The Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) is for children and young people, and their families, who experience difficulties in the development of their gender identity. They support young people up to the age of 18 year olds. Most of the referrals are from 12-16 years olds.

• 'Watching My Son Become My Daughter' - A video following the journey of a Welsh transgender teenager as she explores the possibilities of identity.