"We were, and continue to be, very impressed by the people, the philosophy, the knowledge, and the technology offered by FLAIR." - Greg Anker​, Deputy Head Pupil Wellbeing & Personal Development

OBJECTIVES

As one of Britain’s leading independent school communities, Berkhamsted School welcomes children from all over the world. Berkhamsted’s mission is to help shape resilient and ambitious young adults who have a sense of purpose and compassion, with the motivation to succeed in the next stage of their lives.

Key to this mission is equity for all students and staff. Berkhamsted School is a progressive organisation that continually strives to improve its provision for students, former students, parents, and colleagues. Central to this methodology for reform is to be data-driven, with every reform proposal shaped by quantitative and qualitative data.

To help them achieve this goal, Berkhamsted School partnered with FLAIR to provide the data insights needed to create and implement a targeted and data-backed racial equity strategy.

THE CHALLENGE

The school was keen to see every school make racial equity a strategic priority for the next decade. They knew they needed a data-driven and bespoke approach to educate and develop a generation imbued with racial equity as a core value.

However, with five different campuses, it was challenging for the school to discover the ‘ground truth’ for any student or colleague. Berkhamsted School's organisational structure means there is no ‘typical’ Berkhamsted student. There are co-education and single-sex education, day students, and boarders, as well as both UK nationals and international students.

Previous to working with FLAIR, Berkhamsted School used traditional data capture approaches to measure the ethnicity profile of staff and students. They also rolled out an annual Student Wellbeing Survey as a student voice exercise, which captured feedback on bullying behaviours.

However, Berkhamsted School wanted to work intentionally to promote and develop ED&I within their community. They understood to do this effectively, they needed a more holistic and data-driven approach to capture reliable and valuable insights.

As a result, the school established a Standing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, and the Principal commissioned FLAIR as the data partner to support the targeted programme.

>> DOWNLOAD HERE >> Racial Equity in Education: 2022 UK Report

THE SOLUTION

FLAIR was selected to harness data to map the culture of the different school communities, benchmark performance against each school, and track progress year on year.

Using FLAIR’s analytics engine, Berkhamsted School could understand their progress year on year. They could quickly and effectively prioritise resources to optimise results and improve the student and staff experience. FLAIR’s streamlined data and seamless process meant the school was able to act fast and within 100 days had begun to implement FLAIR’s recommendations.

“FLAIR provided all the resources necessary to promote the survey, and FLAIR’s consultants are excellent in terms of explanations, support and meeting deadlines.” Greg Anker​, Deputy Head Pupil Wellbeing & Personal Development

The first step to achieving this was to gather data using FLAIR’s anonymous science-backed questionnaire to open up conversations about race and ethnicity with all staff and students. FLAIR worked closely with each school throughout the data collection process, with expert guidance and stakeholder communication materials, to ensure optimal response rates to accurately map the student and staff experience.

FLAIR’s solution consisted of 4 key components:

• QUESTION: Gather student and staff data
  Our science-backed questionnaires opened up the conversation on race and ethnicity across the school community. Using real-world scenarios, FLAIR was able to surface the unique experiences of students and staff to map the different community cultures, helping the school to target root issues. Responses remained anonymous to create a safe space for all staff and students.
  

• COMPARE: Smart dashboards
  FLAIR’s dashboards then turned the data into actionable insights. Visualise your strengths, uncover your weaknesses, drill down for more detail and benchmark your progress.
  

• SOLVE: A Racial Equity Roadmap
  Our smart algorithms then turned the data into a clear Racial Equity Roadmap, providing straightforward recommendations for targeted action and allocating resources with ROI in mind.

• REPEAT: Benchmark your progress
  The final central component of the solution was benchmark data. Berkhamsted School was able to effectively benchmark progress against each school, as well as measuring progress toward racial equity year on year.

“It could not have been made any easier.” - Greg Anker​, Deputy Head Pupil Wellbeing & Personal Development

This process instantly enabled the leadership team to visualise their strengths and weaknesses while critically benchmarking their progress. The school will repeat the survey annually to track clear progress and measure the effectiveness of their racial equity initiatives.

THE OUTCOMES

In just 100-days from launching FLAIR’s questionnaire, Berkhamsted School was able to pave the way forward for racial equity with clear next steps. For example, based on FLAIR’s strategic recommendations, Berkhamsted School could take quick action on the following targeted initiatives such as creating an Anti-Racist Code of Conduct and film, training to increase awareness and the understanding of microaggressions, and anonymised shortlisting for all job vacancies.

Key benefits include:

• FLAIR provided Berkhamsted School with a clear roadmap showing them where to focus their resources to advance racial equity

• Access to a smart dashboard to easily visualise areas of strength and drill down into areas to target for improvement

• Benchmark data to help them visualise progress year-on-year to measure their progress towards racial equity effectively

• Staff and students across the school community had a safe platform to voice their experiences

Would you recommend FLAIR?

“Wholeheartedly and unconditionally”, Greg Anker​, Deputy Head Pupil Wellbeing & Personal Development