I wanted to be part of the Increasing Diversity in ITT project because I have seen what becomes possible when schools and training providers move from good intentions to deliberate design. As a DEI coach on this project, my role is to support that shift, turning equity from an aspiration into everyday practice.
The evidence tells us why this matters. NFER research in 2024 and 2025 shows that candidates from Global Majority backgrounds apply in strong numbers, but are significantly less likely to be accepted, to qualify, or to progress. That does not point to a lack of talent. It points to a system that is not working as fairly as it should.
If a system has been built in a way that repeatedly produces the same unequal outcomes, you do not fix it with better slogans. You fix it by changing how the system runs. As Dr. Penny Rabiger (2025) puts it: ‘Without such fundamental shifts, anti-racism risks becoming an uninstalled ‘system update’, leaving the structures of racial injustice intact.’
This work is about making those shifts real, so equity is not something we intend, it is something we do.
This is personal for me. Years ago, I overheard a colleague say that some applications were being rejected purely because of candidates’ names. Not their experience. Not their potential. Their names. That moment stayed with me because it captured what many Global Majority educators recognise – barriers built into everyday decisions, often invisible to those who are not on the receiving end of them.
Where this work really starts
When I work with SCITTs and placement schools, I start with racial literacy. Leaders cannot change what they cannot yet see. We build a shared understanding of how racism shows up:
- Personally: Assumptions, bias, identity
- Between people: Who is believed, supported, developed, promoted
- In the system: Recruitment, assessment, progression routes, data, accountability
- In the classroom: Curriculum, pedagogy, classroom culture.
Without this foundation, organisations often default to activity that looks positive but does not change outcomes – a statement, a one-off session, a ‘celebrating diversity’ week – while the same decisions keep being made in the same way.
Across education, we invest heavily in programmes, training and interventions because we want lasting impact for young people and the communities they grow up in. But too often we are pouring that effort into a leaking bucket. If we do not understand how inequity shows up in everyday decisions and systems, we carry a major blind spot. The effort goes in but the impact leaks out, in who gets accepted, who is supported to thrive, whose concerns are acted on, and who is seen as leadership material.
Why coaching makes the difference
Training can raise awareness. Coaching is where leadership habits change. Through coaching, leaders and teams are supported to:
- look closely at where decisions are made and who is affected
- interrogate data rather than explain it away
- practise the conversations many people avoid
- turn reflection into actions that stick.
This work also depends on psychological safety – not comfort, but the ability to say we have got a blind spot and then actually do something about it. When teams have that safety, they stop asking ‘what should we say?’ and start asking ‘what should we change?’
Where I have seen change
Across the SCITTs I work with, the impact has been tangible.
- Clearer public intent: Websites and communications that acknowledge context and signal seriousness about equity and learning so applicants can see what an organisation stands for
- Stronger recruitment practice: Unconscious bias is not treated as a tick box – it shows up in criteria, shortlisting, interview structure and decision making
- Safer internal cultures: Teams become more honest and responsive. Trainees feel that shift through clearer support, stronger belonging and quicker resolution when concerns are raised
- More clarity about what next: Less paralysis and more informed action – what to build, what to stop, what to challenge.
These are not cosmetic changes. They are the early signs of a system beginning to operate differently.
What I have valued most
The work becomes meaningful when leaders bring me into their coaching conversations about the real decisions they are wrestling with, such as what their data is really telling them, how recruitment criteria are being interpreted, what their website is signalling to potential applicants, or how to handle a difficult conversation with a partner school.
This takes vulnerability, because coaching means being willing to think out loud, challenge your own assumptions and sit with uncertainty. I have seen leaders grow in confidence not by having all the answers, but by developing the habits that matter, noticing inequity as it shows up, interrupting it in the moment and making choices that align with their values even when it feels uncomfortable.
Commitment in action
Some examples of what this looks like in practice:
- KMT – clear public commitments, recruitment changes and a growing culture of psychological safety
- HISP MAT – a focused day on anti-racism and EDI leadership, followed immediately by concrete action planning
- Portsmouth SCITT – detailed FAQs and clear calls to action for their wider community
- OTT SCITT – a whole-team strategy session showing the level of intentionality needed for change to last.
Moving forward
If we want a teaching workforce that reflects the communities it serves, we have to change what happens at the points that shape outcomes – the everyday decisions about selection, support, assessment, placement experience, progression and leadership.
This is where coaching comes in. Coaching helps leaders slow down at the moments that matter and ask better questions, such as:
- What is this process really rewarding?
- Who is it working for and who is it quietly filtering out?
- What are we calling ‘quality’ and who defined it?
- What would change if we designed for ‘belonging’ and not just access?
This project has shown me that when organisations are willing to have those conversations honestly and act on what they learn, change stops being performative and starts becoming structural. Not perfect. Not immediate. But real, repeatable and sustainable.
Equity will not come from better intentions alone. It comes from changing the system one decision at a time until the outcomes finally match the values.
References
Rabiger P (2025) Racism is old-fashioned, antiracism is modern: An error occurred while checking for an antiracism system update! Journal of Childhood, Education and Society 6(3): 468–484.
National Foundation for Educational Research (2025) Ethnic disparities in entry to teacher training, teacher retention and progression to leadership. NFER (funded by Mission 44), 9 June. Available at: https://www.nfer.ac.uk/
The Increasing Diversity in ITT project is a four-year long project funded by Mission 44 in partnership with Being Luminary, Chartered College of Teaching and Chiltern Learning Trust. The project is focused on dismantling the systemic barriers that trainee teachers from Global Majority Heritage (GMH) backgrounds face throughout the Initial Teacher Training (ITT) journey, from application to leadership. Find out more about the project here.
