11 minute read
Education Corner Podcast Interview
EDUCATION CORNER PODCAST
EDUCATION CORNER PODCAST INTERVIEW WITH ASSISTANT HEAD PASTORAL
FROM CRANLEIGH SCHOOL, SURREY
Mr. David Mulae
Mr. David Mulae speaks about the ethos and values at Cranleigh School, his prior history working on EDI issues, the work taking place with ‘Flair’ partnered with an organisation called the ‘African Caribbean Education Network’ (ACEN), Cranleigh’s commitment to #BeTheChange and how Cranleigh are teaching the children to be themselves and to embrace the future.
Please explain to us the importance and relevance of the Cranleigh motto ‘Ex Cultu Robur’?
Certainly. So,‘Ex Cultu Robur’ means ‘from culture comes strength’. So, traditionally, this would have meant teaching classical traditions and values of the world to give pupils the strength to go out into the world. It now stands for a celebration of all we do, in a holistic sense, around the child in addition to preparing them for their exams and assessments. ‘Ex Cultu Robur’ celebrates culture in all its forms – we embrace people’s school backgrounds and celebrate the diversity it brings into our community. This gives Cranleighans the best experience and understanding of the outside world and better prepares them for life beyond Cranleigh.
Can you tell us a little bit more about the ethos and values at Cranleigh?
This follows on from ‘Ex Cultu Robur’, which has helped to shape the ethos that we give Cranleighans. The ethos gives them the insight to recognise their privilege, to shape the future culture of the world through lives of service and leadership. Here at Cranleigh, we don’t ask: “What is our vision for Cranleigh School?” We ask: “What is our vision for Cranleighans?” when they go out into the world. We do that, at the heart of this, through four core values, which stand as: Service, Relationships, Leadership and Excellence. The question is, what does that look like on the ground? On the ground, we break that down into three pillars: ‘Cranleigh thinking’, ‘Cranleigh being’ and ‘Cranleigh giving’. ‘Cranleigh thinking’ is thinking beyond a test, with enriched questions in all departments that are encouraged to get people thinking beyond the specification and the syllabus. There is ‘Cranleigh being’, which is who we are and how we are and that’s something that I’m heavily involved in as Assistant Head (Pastoral) here. Then we have ‘Cranleigh giving’ which is the foundation, the charitable side of the school, and that’s thinking beyond ourselves.
Can you tell us a little more about how you came to be at Cranleigh School and your personal background?
I’m a biology teacher by trade. I started teaching 13 years ago. I have moved through the school, including working in boarding as an Assistant House Master and then latterly, for the last 8 years, running
Cranleigh School
a boarding house as a House Master at Christ’s Hospital School.
That took us through numerous challenges including the Covid outbreak and during that time, during the lockdown, was the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The school I was at before had an ACS (an African-Caribbean Society) and the pupil leaders of the ACS approached me and asked if I would host an online meeting for them to discuss George Floyd and the feelings around it. I agreed. Up until that point I had probably been slightly reluctant to get overly involved in the ACS. It is a pupil-run initiative and I was very happy that they had it, but I wanted them to identify with it themselves and not lead it as ‘the Black teacher’. I hosted the meeting, listened to them talk for about an hour and a half and they were discussing their feelings around the murder; their feelings about structural racism in the US and the UK; their hopes, their fears, their aspirations. The funny thing is, everything they were describing about how they were feeling was the same series of emotions that I had gone through when I had watched the news reports as well. At the end of that session, I spoke to them and told them just that I was experiencing the same feelings of loss and hopelessness and fear and worry and that it was normal. I warned them to be careful with social media because it echoes around, and with us all being at home we needed to make sure we looked after ourselves as well. But I got off that call and I vowed to myself that I would identify more closely and never be scared to speak out for antiracism, for the protective characteristic. I was very guarded about speaking out before, probably up until that point.
As a result of that work, I did a couple of courses – one with the NEU, which was becoming an Equalities Officer. On the back of that I got elected as my common room Equity and Diversity Representative within the House Masters and Mistress’ body I was in - I was the diversity and inclusion champion. It’s really important at this point to say that when I was representing EDI (Equity, Diversity and Inclusion)
issues, that I was actually interested in all aspects of diversity, not just race. It’s important because diversity and inclusion is about all protective characteristics and about all people feeling safe and supported and secure in the environment that we’re in. However, you focus on one at a time, and work in one area always supports work in other areas as well. In the wake of George Floyd, the focus was definitely on race, ethnicity and anti-racism work in schools.
That led me to a point where I saw the job advert for Cranleigh School – they wanted somebody to join their SLT (Leadership Team); they wanted somebody to work with the HM body, they wanted somebody to work with equity, diversity and inclusion work. It just seemed to fit everything that I was interested in and looking for at the time. When I spoke to Martin, the headteacher here, he expressed that there was this feeling post-George Floyd and in the wake of the BLM (Black Lives Matter) movement in America and globally. He said that they’d started the body of work here and they were really interested in making the change and they wanted more of a guidance and a steer, and that would be an important part of my role. So, the fit seemed to be there and I was really interested in driving the project forward.
We understand one of the key roles you are playing at the school is addressing issues including: anti-racism, over all diversity, inclusion and equality, wellbeing and mental health. Can you tell us a little more about this and the work that is taking place?
There’s lots of work that was taking place already. About six months before I started here, Cranleigh had hired a teacher of music and cultural diversity, and there was already a big exploration of cultural diversity underway through music. They had
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Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
done that through a partnership with a charity called ‘Black Lives in Music’ run by a gentleman called Roger Wilson. They were looking to start somewhere, and cultural diversity in music was the starting point that they chose. The individual involved, Mahaliah Edwards, also started a departmental diversity advocate group, which essentially was going into each department and asking for volunteers of staff who wanted to sit in a group and look at ways of diversifying the curriculum that they are in. Of course, there is a lot more work to do with both diversification and the decolonisation of the curricular both on a school level and on a national level as well. Here, in Cranleigh, we’re starting to challenge the curriculum, we’re trying to look for diversity representatives in the departments and that was challenging the ‘Cranleigh thinking’ side of the issue.
The school had also engaged with a company called ‘Flair’ and we did a survey of pupils and staff that gave us a data starting point in terms of ethnicity and in terms of the issues that may be present within the school. It’s important not to shy away from this. My experience of Cranleigh is incredibly warm, welcoming and friendly. I feel massively included here as a member of staff and I would encourage any members of staff to look at working here. But any school has these issues, and any school that tells you that it doesn’t is not looking deep enough. So, it’s really important to get that data to start from. ‘Flair’ itself is partnered with an organisation called the ‘African Caribbean Education Network’ (ACEN) and I’ve had experiences working with them before as well. We’re looking to engage with them alongside our Flair survey data to look at steps around marketing, admissions, HR and really make a lasting positive change at Cranleigh to make sure that we recognise the diversity within our population and see if there are ways that we
can increase the diversity that we have here.
As we have discussed, Cranleigh are keen to promote EDI and racial tolerance and diversity. Can you tell us a little more about Cranleigh’s commitment to #BeTheChange?
Certainly. So #BeTheChange was actually a project before 2020, but post-2020 Cranleigh took on the #BeTheChange as an inclusion initiative. It is a pledge that is signed by all pupils before joining the school. What it does is it opens up the conversation for me to be able to come in and start the EDI work with pupils. It fits our ethos because it fits the model of understanding that we’re producing Cranleighans who can go into the outside world and make positive changes, not just be a bystander. It means they will actually be able to challenge social norms and call out injustices as they see them.
Since you have joined the school, what progress do you feel Cranleigh has made on this journey?
There have been some very quick and easy wins. EDI work is never complete and is always going to be something that we need to keep focusing on. The easy things we have been able to do are things like skin-tone plasters: we went to the medical centre and we have added medium skin-tone and dark skin-tone plasters to matron’s offices and first aid kits, meaning that pupils now have a choice of a range of plasters. The medical centre has unveiled a training package for their nurses, which is looking at skin conditions and how they present in different skin types (which is an issue that is actually quite prevalent in medicine at the moment). We were looking at gender-inclusive toilets – we have managed to identify some mixed-gender toilets and have designated those as gender-inclusive toilets quite quickly. We’ve managed to put female sanitary products into the female and mixed-gender toilets as well. These are all just really small, quick wins that can make people who perhaps wouldn’t normally be considered feel like they fit into the community that we are in. Lots of that work was being looked
Making changes
at, lots of pupils were trying to drive these projects through last year. I was able to come in and push them through quite quickly and claim the win for ‘Cranleigh being’.
The major body of work that we’re doing here is redefining and crystallising the structure of ‘Cranleigh being’. So, ‘Cranleigh being’ is who we are and how we are. The pupil groups below that – there used to be a pupil ‘Cranleigh being’ group and an Alliance group. The Alliance group was looking out for all the protective characteristics that may have issues with diversity. What we’ve done now is make sure that ‘Cranleigh being’ retains its position on the central pillars and that’s the headline structure. Alongside that we have a Pupil Wellbeing group, and that looks after the pupil-driven initiatives: things like consent training, things like body image and a new Anti-bullying group as well, following on from the anti-bullying conference that was hosted here two weeks ago. That is led by one of our pupil leaders, an upper sixth former. Then we have the Alliance group, which we have renamed ‘The Diversity Alliance’, and that now sits as an umbrella structure above, at the moment, four and hopefully five protective characteristic groups. These are: anti-sexism; anti-racism; a pride group (an LGBTQ+ group); we are hopefully going to bring an inter-faith group into play before the end of this year, and we have a neurodiversity group that we’re looking to set up which will consider students who have specific learning needs and work with our Learning Support department.
This sort of work around anti-racism, antisexism and anti-discrimination is all important in building an inclusive environment for pupils when they are here, but discussing it in school means pupils can go out into the world and they can be the change that they want to see.
We would like to thank the Assistant Head Pastoral, Mr. David Mulae, Cranleigh School, for giving up his time to speak to us.
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