Racial Justice

Dear parents/carers

In line with our mission and values, our priority is to continue to make Ursuline High School a fairer and more inclusive place to work and study, with belonging and racial justice at its heart, offering dignity and respect to every child, member of staff and parent/carer in our school community. We accept that breaking down long-standing racist inequalities will take time, and this is an ongoing commitment.

Our Curriculum, Enrichment & Personal Development Programmes continue to provide students with daily opportunities to grow and learn, whilst our Recruitment & Retention Strategy and Continuous Professional Development Programme ensure a diverse workforce, with staff trained on all EDI components including Racial Justice. As part of this strategy, we prioritise supporting many national celebrations including Hispanic Heritage Week’ and ‘Black History Month’ which last year under the theme ‘Celebrating our Sisters’ our students joined thousands of other students around the country in the ‘Great Big Live Assembly’ online, and in school students enjoyed our wide and varied programme designed to promote knowledge of Black history, culture, and heritage, and the positive contributions of RMG people to British Society.

It continues to be our priority to build a culture that is inclusive, respectful, enabling, inspirational, integrating, and self-reflective. To date we have achieved demonstrable progress in all these areas, and I am delighted to share a summary of our Racial Justice Strategy Impact Report, 2023-2024 (below). With targets exceeded across many areas including Assessment, Curriculum, Continuous Professional Development, Destinations, Disadvantaged Pupils, Student Voice, and Teacher Training, I hope you will agree that we have made positive changes for our racially marginalised current and future students.

To ensure the best outcomes, with a creative and collaborative approach, I will continue to work closely with my SLT, our Task Force, Governors, students, and staff.  Progress will continue to be reviewed annually and reported to students, staff, parents/carers, and other stakeholders.

As I am sure you can appreciate this is a collective effort, and for it to succeed, must continue to be embedded into all aspects of the school’s operations, and into daily life and experiences of the school community. I am proud of our Strategy, the progress we have made so far and our future growth. I am committed to eliminating discrimination, removing barriers to success, and advancing equity of opportunity and outcomes for everyone at the Ursuline. This is the end goal.

Lastly, I want to thank my SLT, the Governors, parents/carers and students who have participated in our Racial Justice Task Force and the contributions they have made to moving the school forward.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss our Strategy in any more detail, please do contact me via my PA, Lydia Torch.

Yours faithfully

Eoin Kelly

Headteacher

Supporting Documents

Becoming an anti-racist school, A Governor’s Story