The school is now engaged in the discussion about gender and what that means for inclusive practice. The staff survey was incredibly helpful for me to gauge if teachers felt their practice had changed in the past year. One teacher commented:
| I feel I’m only beginning to address these kinds of issues and don’t know why I haven’t before. So I feel a bit guilty for that! Especially with the younger ones as I think its so important that they understand these things from early on, discussed in a way appropriate to their age of course. |
Another stated:
I think that teachers probably unconsciously sometimes gender stereotype as we were brought up with but it is good that this current generation are the ones who are more aware of it.
With that in mind, I feel that the next steps would be staff development work around unconscious bias and its impact. We should also explore the representation of gender within our planning, teaching and resources.
The parent survey showed me that we need to be more transparent/explicit about gender inclusion why we promote it and what that means not only for our school but for Scottish education. One parent commented:
Why is Gylemuir/Scottish government forcing this on our children? It seems that it’s is their number one goal.
Another said:
Don’t you have far more important things to consider and look into ? Gender is central to all life and trying to pretend genders aren’t different or that gender traits are wrong is nothing short of embarrassing.
I include these not to be dramatic, but to highlight the fact that there are a range of perspectives on this matter. The general consensus, though, was that the priority should be encouraging pupils not to conform to any kind of stereotype and to be comfortable in their own skin.
The implications of the enquiry thus far are that early intervention is key for children’s perception of gender. The school’s play policy has been updated to be inclusive of all forms of gender expression. Staff are looking critically and the books they use and implementing literature that is inclusive of different types of families, professions and gender expectations. We also need to improve parent engagement with regards to gender inclusion.
This is an extremely fascinating project – I am going to be looking into Equality across the school next year and this has definitely inspired lots of interesting ideas! Do you have any recommendations on where to start with this? Have you looked into things such as LGBTQ+ or racism?
Hi Aimee, thanks for the comment! I’ve looked at both of those things and have led my school in achieving the LGBT Youth Scotland Schools charter award – the first primary school in Edinburgh to do so!
Feel free to email me at Louise.ret@gylemuir.edin.sch.uk and I’d love to share some ideas!
This is a very interesting project Louise and my school has been through the process of the LGBGT Charter and gained accreditation. Im wondering how you will address the staff development work around unconscious bias?