OBJECTIVES

Clifton College is one of the finest co-educational public boarding schools in the country for children aged 0-19. The school welcomes pupils from all over the world, offering education based on the highest academic standards with the majority of leavers attending top universities. However, the high achievements of the students at Clifton College wouldn’t be possible without all of the children feeling safe, secure and understood within the school environment.

One of the fundamental aims at Clifton College is to prepare every pupil for life in our rapidly-changing world. Central to achieving this aim is the school’s overarching mission is to be an inclusive place for everyone, making a positive difference in the lives of others.

To help them achieve this goal, Clifton College partnered with FLAIR to give them the necessary data insights to enable them to create and implement a targeted and data-backed racial equity strategy.

THE CHALLENGE

Clifton College didn’t have an official racial equity strategy in place when they reached out to FLAIR, but various initiatives and programs were in place to support students and staff and nurture their diverse community.

Without the correct data to understand the root cause of racial bias, they could not effectively prioritise where to target resources.

FLAIR was chosen to help the school take their first step to understand their community and benchmark performance while establishing the correct foundations to measure and progress racial equity. Using FLAIR’s analytics engine, Clifton College were able to harness data to understand the progress they made year on year and effectively prioritise resources to optimise results and improve the student and staff experience.

"We chose FLAIR because what they offer is clear, straightforward and they provide an Independent Research Report at the end to inform our next steps. Additionally, the FLAIR team is a great team" Dr Tim Greene MA DPhil, Head of College

The college wanted to work towards more diverse representation within the teaching staff. With a better understanding of unconscious bias, microaggression and racism for both pupils and staff. And for incidents to be addressed swiftly, with the perpetrators and victims understanding the seriousness of the incidents and the position of the school.

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

THE SOLUTION

The first step was to gather data using an anonymous survey. Using FLAIR’s science-backed surveys, Clifton College were able to open up conversations about race and ethnicity with all staff and students. FLAIR worked closely with them throughout the survey rollout, with expert guidance and stakeholder communication materials, to ensure survey response rates were optimal to paint a clear picture of the student and staff experience.

The data was organised under 4 key pillars:

• Racial diversity: how racially diverse the staff base and student population were.

• Racial-inclusion barriers: whether race was a barrier to feeling included within the school.

• Racial awareness: how staff and students were likely to respond if witnessing different types of racism.

• Racist behaviours: how frequently different forms of racism were being witnessed and experienced.

This data was then used to map the culture at Clifton College on FLAIR’s smart dashboard. This instantly enabled the leadership team to visualise their strengths and weaknesses, while critically benchmarking their progress. The survey will then be repeated annually to track clear progress made year on year and measure the effectiveness of their racial equity initiatives.

FLAIR applied AI, which turned Clifton College's data into a clear roadmap to positive change, with straightforward recommendations for targeted action to ensure they allocated their resources with ROI in mind. The FLAIR team continued to support Clifton College every quarter to ensure they were able to effectively progress towards meeting their annual racial equity goals.

THE OUTCOMES

Using FLAIR’s data insights, Clifton College were able to pave the way forward for racial equity with clear next steps. For example, based on FLAIR’s strategic recommendations, Clifton College were able to take quick action on the following targeted initiatives:

• Creation of an educational piece around racism for all members of the community.

• An anonymous platform to report incidents.

• Diversification of the curriculum.

• Formation of a committee with parents who are actively involved in the EDI journey.

• Lots of further initiatives at the planning stage.

Since the survey was implemented staff noticed BAME pupils were more confident to speak up and call out racism, microaggressions and bias, and parents from all backgrounds were also more interested in the EDI journey.

KEY BENEFITS

• Clifton College were given clear 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 effectively measure their progress towards racial equity.

• Staff and students across the school community were given a safe platform to voice their experiences.