Diversity & inclusion

Hilary Spencer, CEO of Ambition Institute, said: “Ambition Institute is deeply committed to equality, diversity and inclusion, both in the education workforce and in our own organisation. This year, we have continued to focus on developing the evidence base to understand what interventions will be helpful, and applying those findings to our work. We are making progress, but we know we have more to do. This year, we will build on that work across the whole spectrum of disadvantage.”

Here are some of the things we are working on:

• We’re one of 13 organisations in the education sector to have signed a joint statement, demonstrating our commitment in furthering EDI, and holding ourselves to account.
• We’ve developed research to identify where there are ethnic disparities within the teacher career pipeline
• We’ve shared those research findings and recommendations across the wider education sector to stimulate debate and action
• We’ve analysed the ethnicity and diversity of participants across Ambition’s programmes, and those delivered by our partners
• We’ve reviewed our programmes to ensure diverse and inclusive representation is incorporated throughout the design, delivery and marketing
• We’ve analysed demographic and diversity data across our workforce to inform future recruitment
• We’ve implemented a new staff recruitment platform across the organisation, designed to reduce unconscious selection bias
• We’ve increased the diversity of our board of trustees through the recruitment of new trustees.

We’re also continuing to:

• Work with other partner organisations in the education sector to share best practice
• Ensure we attract, retain and develop the widest talent pool of participants on our programmes by regularly reviewing and developing our content, curricula, facilitation and recruitment approach
• Develop our Initial Teacher Training offer which considers diversity and inclusion at the design stages of recruitment and application processes and within its programme design
• Engage with the government’s SEND consultation and supporting work across the sector to improve the system for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities
• Continue our work to ensure Ambition Institute is genuinely inclusive for our staff through continued support for our affinity groups, and through our new People Strategy.