t is now over a year since the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement prompted us all to reflect on how we should support race equality and I have been looking back at what we have done at the RGS to promote inclusion over recent months.
We have also had cause to reflect on the widely publicised death of Sarah Everard and the testimonies contributed to the Everyone’s Invited website. Sense of belonging and Belief in each other are two of the four pillars of the RGS ethos so addressing issues of both racism and sexual harassment clearly sit at the heart of our values and our wider support for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. It is also worth noting that the breadth of the social backgrounds of students attending on a bursary is central to the vision of the school and this diversity also brings very positive benefits to the RGS community. Since the RGS became co-educational twenty years ago our proportion of girls has continued to rise and now stands at 44%. Last year, for the first time ever, our Lower Sixth Form had more girls than boys. Similarly, over a third of our pupils come from ethnic minority backgrounds and this means that individuals can very much be themselves as diversity is celebrated for being the norm. Furthermore, the results of our girls are very much the equal of those of our boys and, in our most recent results analysis, non-white British pupils performed marginally better than the overall cohort. However, Love of learning and Ambition to succeed, which are the other two pillars of our ethos go far beyond the narrow pursuit of academic results. Over the course of the last year, we have proactively sought to understand the lived experience of our current and former pupils. We started by forming an advisory group with representation from parents, staff, governors and Old Novocastrians. In the autumn term, we engaged a leading diversity consultancy to conduct a survey of all pupils and staff to understand their experience of race that could be benchmarked against the experience in schools around the country. This has been followed up more recently with focus groups of pupils and parents as well as a survey of our alumni and we have listened to a wide range of opinions in the process. Indeed, it has been important for us to understand what has happened in the past and what is currently happening to be able to provide the best possible experience for every one of our pupils going forwards. As a school, we are prepared to hear and act upon any uncomfortable truths, as any organisation serious about truly embracing equality should be. We already have an incredibly diverse student body and it was therefore not surprising to find that we were largely perceived to be a very inclusive community. While it was reassuring to receive this confirmation, we certainly came across instances where things have not been right and we cannot afford to be complacent going forwards. In seeking to deliver on our aspiration that every child should have the best possible experience of school, we want to create an open culture that allows us to identify early when things are not right so that we can put in place appropriate interventions. Every year we take students from a wide variety of backgrounds and with diverse prior experiences. Every year, however, we therefore have to engage with all of our new joiners, quickly bringing them on board with the expectations of an inclusive RGS community. We have already identified and are implementing a number of actions to improve what we do in the short term and I have been delighted by the range of student-led initiatives too. The process of change will inevitably require persistence and a long-term campaign across the whole of society but I hope that the RGS can play our part in moving that agenda forwards. The areas that we are already identifying range from changes to what and how we teach through to how we provide role models to our students. On our senior leadership team we have a 50/50 split by gender and this balance is reflected throughout our staff and governing body. However, like many institutions, we need to do more to improve the ethnic balance of our employees as well as other forms of diversity. While this may in part reflect the demographics of the region, we are actively looking at our employment practices and working to attract high quality candidates from diverse backgrounds into teaching. Some of the initiatives that we are implementing may take time to come to fruition and each incremental change may seem relatively minor in its impact. However, every individual can make a difference and little things add up. I hope that future generations will look back on this period as a cultural turning point where society really learnt to appreciate and celebrate diversity in all its forms.