Celebrating National Inclusion Week (NIW) - #ImpactMatters

Equity, diversity, and inclusion are at the heart of our charitable mission – we want to unlock the potential in all children, not just some.

We want our employees to reflect the diversity of our society. In 2023, we have reviewed our recruitment and selection procedures to eliminate bias as far as possible. All Level 3-6 vacancies require 25% of shortlisted candidates to be ethnic minorities, and everyone on an interview panel must complete our inclusive hiring training. Our work on disability and accessibility has also been recognised, and we are now a Disability Confident Employer (Level 2).  We are proud to have recently partnered with Inclusive Employers, which founded #NationalInclusionWeek, to provide comprehensive race and cultural competency training across the charity. This training will begin in October 2024 and will reach every level of the charity, including our Executive team.

We support everybody who participates in our programmes to thrive, and to extend that sense of belonging into their classrooms and schools, through their teaching and leadership practice. We have introduced a ‘Reasonable Adjustment Passport’ for all Training Programme members and have recently released a podcast series called “Teach Different: Conversations with Autistic Teachers,” where we interview autistic Teach First ambassadors at different stages of their teaching career. Like our staff, we want to make sure we are recruiting teachers who reflect the children whose potential we want to unlock. Our Underrepresented Talent Team specifically work to do this – and was recently awarded the ‘Commitment to Increasing Diversity' at the Institute of Student Employers.

We are so proud of the progress we have made so far. But we cannot be complacent. We know that our society, economy, and education system keep generations of young people at a disadvantage because of classism, racism, sexism, and other forms of inequity. We want to continue shifting this and we look forward to collaborating with our community of partners and supporters to do this.

Want to get involved with Teach First? Find out how you can help to power potential in every pupil: https://www.teachfirst.org.uk/get-involved