Accessing support and guidance

We will shortly also be offering academies and other settings a package to include consultancy and a subscription to EDEAS connect – a subscription only access hub for expert resources, guidance and community support for schools and settings. Please visit this page again or sign up to our EDEAS newsletter.

Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) advisory consultancy

hrough Devon County Council’s equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) pupil forums, children have told us that racism and prejudice occur in all of their schools and these have significant impacts on the children involved:

• Recent Devon County Council data shows that over 57% of incidents in schools have a racism element
• 1 in 6 girls are missing school days due to fear of unwanted comments from boys
• Children who experience bullying are likely to receive 2 grades lower in their GCSEs
• 84% of LGBTQ+ children who experienced prejudice considered taking their own life

With the changing demographics in our Devon schools, your school’s equality duty has never been more significant to make positive impact to children’s lives.

Ofsted’s framework outlines that inspectors ‘will assess the extent to which the provider complies with the relevant legal duties as set out in the Equality Act 2010 including, where relevant, the Public Sector Equality Duty and the Human Rights Act 1998.’

Their handbook further explains that they will review how a school ‘promotes equality of opportunity so that all pupils can thrive together, understanding that difference is a positive, not a negative, and that individual characteristics make people unique. This includes, but is not limited to, pupils’ understanding of the protected characteristics and how equality and diversity are promoted.’

By working alongside you and using our specialist knowledge, we can help your school to improve educational outcomes, children’s sense of belonging and to support your wider EDI provision. This is a unique consultancy that differs from our English as an additional language (EAL) consultancy, as this focuses on your wider EDI needs to help children and staff feel safe and included.

1 hour bespoke consultancy includes one of the following:

• General EDI enquiries, guidance and support
• EDI advisory meeting to provide advice on meeting the needs of ethnic minority, gender diverse and/or LGBTQ+ children, including planning for induction, inclusion and transition
• EDI pupil forums
• EDI consultancy at multi-agency meetings
• 1:1 workshops with repeat assailants or targets
• EDI awareness webinar at a date and time to suite

3 hours bespoke consultancy includes one of the following:

• Short-term advisory consultation
• EDI data review – an opportunity to review your current data and identify trends and themes, in order to feed into your school improvement plan and equality duty review
• Policy reviews
• EDI in person (on site) training

6 hours bespoke consultancy includes one of the following:

• Longer term advisory support
• Academic and engagement intervention for children causing concern who are either ethnically diverse, gender diverse and/or LGBTQ+
• Support with your equality duty review and setting new objectives
• Bespoke training session

Contact EDEAS to discuss your EDI advisory consultancy needs.

Policy exemplars

• Equality and diversity policy, and equality duty review DCC guidance and exemplar (schools)
• Equality, diversity and inclusion policy and equality duty review exemplar and guidance (EYFS)
• Supporting multilingualism (‘EAL’) policy exemplar and guidance