Listening and Learning Together
We are dedicated to listening to our community and empowering our students with the knowledge, awareness, and confidence to critically evaluate social issues and confront prejudice wherever it arises.
We want to assure everyone connected with Brentwood School that we are fully committed to tackling and eradicating racism and we continue to work closely with our community to meet this challenge head-on.
Brentwood School Today
Our ambitious long-term strategy for our school considers how our values – Virtue, Learning and Manners – can help us achieve our goals, including our commitment to anti-racism and diversity. These values permeate the whole school, and we use them regularly to reflect on and explore subjects that are of importance to all of us.
The children of today will play an important role in shaping our world and a key part of our role at Brentwood School is to help our students understand how they can do good in the world, not just well in their exams.
There is, of course, more we can do. And we will.
There is a sign in the Old Bean Library that reads: ‘Here in the past may the present find arms to fight the battle of the future.’
We cannot change the past, but we can evaluate it critically to better understand both what has helped our school endure as a place of learning that has enriched the lives of so many, and how we need to do things differently now and in the future.
Our Commitment and Actions
Diversity and inclusivity is one of our priorities. Here are some of the advancements we have made so far:
- Students are provided opportunities to reflect on and talk about diversity and inclusivity through Year Group assemblies and discussions. Students also run their own assemblies, events and activities.
- We have updated our Equal Opportunities audit to include how we look at the recruitment of staff, rebalancing the underrepresentation of BAME applicants and working on creating a consciously inclusive recruitment strategy. An area we are already focusing on is ensuring this strategy is effective in drawing in applications from people of all demographics. We are working and learning from others who have made significant strides towards achieving this.
- We have analysed annual data comparing the performance of students in public examinations. We want to be sure – based on evidence – that BAME students are not underperforming, so we are undertaking an annual analysis of the value-added performance of BAME students in public examinations.
We recognise that the positive developments outlined above do not mean we have completed our work in the area of promoting diversity and anti-racism, and our work is ongoing.
Diversity and Inclusivity in the Curriculum
We have, in recent years, updated our curriculum as part of our work on diversity and inclusivity. We do not shy away from confronting difficult questions about our country’s past.
The examples given below are not exhaustive, and our annual Equal Opportunities audit, which is presented to Governors, ensures that we maintain the momentum required for us to achieve our goals.
Examples include:
History
English
Prep School Enhancements
Some recent advancements in diversity and inclusion at the Prep School include:
- Changes to the Prep RE curriculum, which centres on many issues regarding inclusion and acceptance.
- An update to topics, which now includes slavery and racism in football.
- Our Music curriculum includes African drumming, stamping tubes from the Solomon Islands, a history of the blues and songs from around the world.
- Students study inclusive comprehension material.
- Regular guest assemblies also include those from BAME backgrounds.