Our EDI Journey
At Cranleigh our aim is to prepare all Cranleighans for global citizenship and equip our pupils to operate effectively in an increasingly more diverse and inclusive wider society. Our school motto is ‘Ex Cultur Robur’, meaning ‘from culture comes strength’, and today this is the beacon lighting our exciting journey towards achieving greater equity, diversity and inclusion both in our school community, and beyond.
Cranleigh is committed to effecting change through our EDI work and significant quick wins include designating gender inclusive toilets, providing free sanitary products in toilets, ensuring access to a range of skin-tone plasters, and recording pupils names to aid teacher pronunciation. There is much more work to be done as we strive in the pursuit of greater social justice and all pupils pledge to #bethechange and engage actively with EDI work through PSHE and pupil lead sub-groups each supporting individual protected characteristics. Pupils are enabled to show allyship for minoritized groups and encouraged to advocate for positive change and challenge injustice in all its forms, whenever they see it.
Cranleigh is committed to driving EDI work internally through ‘positive action, partnerships and projects’ and lead externally by providing networking opportunities and support for EDI leads and pupil groups from other schools.
In order to prepare students for global citizenship, Cranleigh aims to be more diverse and more representative of wider society. It will also ensure that its policy and practice encourage an inclusive culture that stands against discrimination in all its forms.
Cranleigh School and Cranleigh Prep School will:
- increase the number of international students to 10% over the next five years;
- increase the ethnic diversity of students from 7% to a minimum of 10% of the Cranleigh population over the next five years;
- increase the ethnic diversity of staff in line with the ethnic diversity of pupils;
- recruit to achieve an equal gender balance in middle and senior leadership positions over the next ten years.
Cranleigh will publish impact statements on the scope and benefit of partnership work and progress towards its equity, diversity and inclusion aims on a biennial basis.
The following organisations partner with the Schools to help us achieve our social purpose and equality, diversity and inclusion aims:
Black Lives in Music, African Caribbean Education Network, Schools Inclusion Alliance, Royal National Children’s Springboard Foundation, Buttle UK, Surrey Virtual School, Hemisphere, Flair, Beyond Ourselves, West Surrey Schools’ Partnership, Glebelands School, Cranleigh Church of England School, St Joseph’s Specialist Trust, National Literacy Trust, Cranleigh Football Club, Cranleigh Cricket Club, Cranleigh Hockey Club, Surrey Cricket, Surrey Storm Netball.
We are pleased to be a finalist in the Education Choices Awards 2024 for our EDI.
We are pleased to have been awarded a silver FLAIR award.
FLAIR’s Racial Equity Awards symbolise a school’s commitment to building a racially equitable culture. The silver award signifies our noticeable progress this year across at least 4 core metrics.
We are partners of Hemisphere.
Hemisphere Education – Build racial literacy. Disrupt your brain.
Hemisphere is a digital training programme designed to help school leaders, teachers and student-facing staff disrupt bias and build racial literacy. It has been developed on the basis of extensive research and evidence of bias in UK schools, and the effect of that bias on outcomes for Black children. Hemisphere has been developed by Rare, multi-award winning experts on race equity in education and employment. So far, 92% teachers said that Hemisphere helped them to understand black children’s school experiences better, and 86% say that they will make one or more changes to their approach to teaching.
We are on the ACEN school register.
ACEN School Register is a communication channel between their members and schools, enabling schools to continually listen, learn and strategize around the issues that students, teachers, and parents communicate.
The sessions are for those tasked with leading on EDI and safeguarding, and will facilitate cross-school learning, open discussion and problem-solving whilst incorporating anti-racist best practice.
We are members of the Schools Inclusion Alliance.
Creating an environment where young people and staff can thrive and grow, we believe an inclusive environment is essential to an excellent education. SIA is a collaboration between Independent schools and inclusion experts who have come together because they know that a commitment to diversity and inclusion is essential to a high performing school in every way. SIA is a place to get trusted support, guidance and a platform for us to all come together and share our best practice and help each other be better.
Our EDI Lead David Mulae sits on the steering group – you can read more about the team here.
See more about Schools Inclusion Alliance
We are partnered with BLiM.
Black Lives in Music works with organisations, ensembles and companies throughout the UK music industry, opening dialogues and building relationships in the true spirit of working together. The aim is to achieve equality for people of colour so they can express themselves in music of all genres and in all areas of this profession.