Ark’s central team celebrate Pride
At Ark, we believe that ensuring every child has access to an excellent education is an important way to help tackle social inequality. We are proud of our record on narrowing the achievement gap and widening opportunities.
Our disadvantaged students make nearly half a grade more progress in each of their subjects than their peers nationally, and the proportion of students from poorer financial backgrounds going from an Ark sixth form to university is double the national average.
But we know there is more to do to tackle discrimination and promote equality, and we have a particular responsibility to make a positive difference because of the communities our schools serve. About 40% of our students are eligible for the pupil premium compared to 15% nationally, and about 70% are from an ethnic minority background compared to 30% nationally.
A lively discussion at Ark Charter Academy in Portsmouth
Working towards diversity and inclusion
Culture
Build an inclusive culture where everyone in our community (staff, students, families and governors) feel like they can belong.
Objective:
- Improve the sense of belonging reported by staff and students in annual surveys.
Our people
Hire, develop and retain diverse staff across the organisation.
Objectives:
- Increase the diversity of Ark Teacher Training trainees, with a focus on ethnic minorities, religion, social class and male representation.
- Hire diverse candidates as apprentices into a portion of vacant ops roles. It’s important that we’re attracting strong candidates from diverse backgrounds at all levels of the organisation.
Leadership
Bring more diversity to senior leadership and governance positions.
Objectives:
- Increase the number of senior leaders from ethnic minority backgrounds, including school leaders, regional directors and the Ark management team.
- Appoint staff, parent and alumni governors to be more representative of our local communities.
Data
Collect more qualitative and quantitative data to deepen our understanding of staff diversity and experiences.
Objective:
- Increase overall data disclosure from colleagues to help us to understand the diversity of our workforce and underrepresentation that might exist in the areas of disability, sexual orientation, class etc.