Our equalities work

 CST Chief Executive Leora Cruddas CBE said: "CST is committed to taking forward our work on equality, diversity, and inclusion. Our equalities work seeks to build bridges in the creation of a better and more equal society. We draw on the theory of ‘bridging social capital’ - a type of social capital that describes the connections that link people across old social cleavages which typically divide society (such as race, gender, class, or religion). It is these associations, norms of trust and generosity that create ‘bridges’ between communities, groups, and organisations.”

Developments since the 2022/23 statement

Since the last publication of this statement of action CST has:

Strand one - Board Diversity

In October 2020, we published our Essay Collection, On Diversity. Since then, we have been working with sector partners to develop an Academy Trust Governance Code. The code, now published, embeds an expectation on board diversity.

Strand two: Racial Equality in the School Workforce

We contributed to the research report commissioned from NfER on Racial Equality in the School Workforce (May 2022). We disseminated this research through our membership with a call to action on these two main points, and ran a seminar with NFER to directly speak to membership on this research. Building on the findings of the NfER report, we have worked with trust as employers to understand their duties as employers and to contribute to diversifying the workforce.

Strand three – School Cultures (SEND)

With Ambition Institute, we published a landmark paper in 2022 A Good Life: Towards Greater Dignity for People with Learning Disability (Newmark and Rees, 2022). The paper explores ways in which the outcome of the Green Paper consultation could shift thinking away from deficit framing to affirmative language and a broader, more ambitious vision of what constitutes a good life.

We have since worked with Ambition Institute to curate and convene a series of round tables on specific aspects of special educational needs and disability policy. We will shortly be publishing Five principles of SEND reform, which will form the basis for our newly established Trust SEND and Inclusion professional community.

Our 2023 annual conference is on the theme of #Belonging, and there is a strong theme of inclusion and focus on SEND running through the programme.

Commitments for 2023/2024

 Over the course of 2023/2024 CST commits to:

• Embed the Academy Trust Governance Code in our work to support boards, highlighting  Principle 6: Equality, diversity and inclusion which asks board to have a clear, agreed and effective approach to advancing equality, diversity and inclusion throughout the academy trust.
• Building on the findings of the NfER report, continue to work with school trusts as employers to understand their duties as employers and to contribute to diversifying the workforce.
• Working with Ambition Institute, curate and convene our SEND and Inclusion Community to take forward the five principles of SEND reform.
• As a member of the National SEND Implementation Board, work with the DfE and ministers to implement the proposals in the SEND implementation plan.