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The current spotlight is quite rightly on Coronavirus as we all play an essential role in supporting young peoples’ education, but we feel EDI is such an important issue to ensure that we build a stronger BET community. On the 8^th June 2020, we made a statement in response to the tragic death of George Floyd affirming our intolerance of any manifestation of discrimination. As part of this, we promised that we would be relentless in reviewing our practices, systems and processes and this letter marks the start.

The education sector faces significant challenges related to EDI. Matters that have been highlighted nationally and internationally include issues of harassment, dignity and inequality as well as concerns around performance gaps and matters related to mental and physical health equality. Our vision of a stronger community can only be achieved by making our organisation more equitable, diverse and inclusive. In order to understand what EDI means to our stakeholders we have embarked on a comprehensive listening exercise, first in the form of an anonymous survey and then through externally facilitated focus groups. From these, we will publish a consultation document that summarises our findings and suggests our priorities in moving forward. Once we have received comprehensive feedback on that, we will publish our action plan for implementation from September 2021.

Alex Russell, CEO