- About us
- About colleges
-
Corporate services
- Corporate services
- Mental health and wellbeing
- Data Protection/GDPR
-
Employment Services - college workforce
- Employment Services - college workforce
- Employment: How we support members
- Introduction & Employment Helpline
- Absence & Sickness Management
- Contracts and T&Cs
- Disciplinary, Capability & Grievance
- Employment Briefings Library
- Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
- General Employee Relations & HR Issues
- Holiday/annual leave related
- Industrial Relations
- ONS reclassification related guidance
- Pay & Pensions
- Recruitment
- Redundancy, Restructuring & TUPE
- Safeguarding/Prevent
- Workforce Benchmarking, Surveys & Research
-
Governance
- Governance
- Governance: How we support members
- Governance Timeline
- Representation
- AoC National Chairs' Council
- National Governance Professionals' Group
- Code of Good Governance
- External Governance Reviews
- Resources
- Governors Inductions
- Student Governor Inductions
- Student Governor Support Hub
- Guidance
- Hot Topics
- Governance Briefings
- Archive
-
Projects
- Projects
- Get Involved!
- Resources
- Contact the Projects Team
- Apprenticeship Workforce Development (AWD) Programme
- Creating a Greener London – Sustainable Construction Skills
- The 5Rs Approach to GCSE Maths Resits
- Creative Arts in FE 2024 – developing student voice through creativity
- DfE Multiply Capability Support Programme
- Digital Roles Across Non-digital Industries
- GCSE Resits Hub Project
- Pears Foundation Youth Social Action Programme: Phase 2
- T Level and T Level Foundation Year Provider Support Programme
- T Level Professional Development (TLPD) Offer
- The Valuing Enrichment Project
- Creative Writing in FE Anthology 2021/2022
- Resources/Guidance
- Sustainability & Climate Action Hub
- Partnerships
- Honours Nomination
- Brexit
- Ofsted Inspection Support
- Recruitment and consultancy
-
Events and training
- Events and training
- Events
- AoC Annual Conference and Exhibition 2024
- T Level and T Level Foundation Year Events
- Events and training: How we support members
- Network Meetings
- Previous Events and Webinars
- In-House Training
- Senior Leadership Development Programme
- Introducing AoC's Early Career and Experienced Managers' Programme
- Sponsorship and Exhibition Opportunities
- Funding and finance
-
Policy
- Policy
- Meet the Policy Team
- Policy: How we support members
- Policy Areas
- Policy Briefings
- Submissions
- Policy Papers & Reports
- AoC Strategy Groups
-
AoC Reference Groups
- AoC Reference Groups
- 14-16 Reference Group
- 16-18 Reference Group
- Adults (inc. ESOL) Reference Group
- Apprenticeship Reference Group
- EDI Reference Group
- HE Reference Group
- HR Reference Group
- International Reference Group
- Mental Health Reference Group
- SEND Reference Group
- Sustainability & Climate Change Reference Group
- Technology Reference Group
- WorldSkills Reference Group
- Opportunity England
-
Research unit
- Research unit
- Surveys
- MiDES Benchmarking
- Research Further
-
Research projects
- Research projects
- Investigating the impact of the apprenticeship levy on training outcomes - January 2024
- Forecasting the cost of the English HE funding system - November 2023
- Local skills improvement plans: a review of their impact and opportunities for the future
- The educational provision for 14 to 16-year-olds in further education in England
- Staying with the troublemakers: A celebration of research in FE
- Strengthening governance arrangements in the English post-16 skills system
- Data Sources
- Think Further - thought leadership in FE
-
News, campaigns and parliament
- News, campaigns and parliament
- Post-election hub
- General and mayoral election resources
-
Comms advice and resources for colleges
- Comms advice and resources for colleges
- Media relations: 10 ways to build effective relationships with the media
- How to choose a PR agency
- Legal considerations for communications and media work
- How to plan for a new build
- Crisis communications: your go-to guide
- How to handle photo consent for media and marketing
- How to evaluate a PR and media campaign
- How to react to regulation, funding and restructuring issues
- How to react quickly and effectively to the media
- Working with the media: a complete guide
- How to write a compelling case study
- How to write for the web
- College communications, marketing and campaigns community
- AoC Newsroom
- AoC Blogs
- Work in Parliament
- AoC Campaigns
- Briefings
- Communications, media, marketing and research: How we support members
-
Equality, diversity and inclusion
- Equality, diversity and inclusion
- Equality, diversity and inclusion blogs
- AoC’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Charter
- AoC’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Charter for further education sector organisations
- AoC’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Charter signatories
- Diversity in Leadership
- Black FE Leadership Group and AoC partnership agreement
- AoC's Equity Exchange
- Equality, diversity and inclusion: how we support members
- Equality, diversity and inclusion case studies
- ETF Inclusive Leadership Coaching Programme
- Equality, diversity and inclusion briefings
- Home
- News, campaigns and parliament
- AoC Blogs
- Bringing about positive change through EDI
Bringing about positive change through EDI
By Ellisha Soanes
The death of George Floyd had a ripple effect across the world. As a result of this tragic news, students at West Suffolk College decided to use this as a starting point to bring about positive change. We had discussions in lessons and explored personal and more general conversations based around racism. From the powerful stories that we shared, we created some training videos about black icons and our own experiences to share with other staff and students. The videos were so well received, we decided to look into the possibility of embedding black history into our curriculum throughout the year.
Our principal and governors have been incredibly supportive of our plan, and thanks to additional support from Place 21, the European Union and the college as a whole, we slowly began to create building blocks that would enable us to carry out our mission. Funding has been created to create some new roles for equality, diversity and digital inclusion ambassadors. They are helping to champion what we are trying to do by creating a series of events and workshops with diverse community groups and businesses.
Windrush Generation and ‘untold heroes’ celebrated
We officially launched in June 2021 with a powerful occasion that celebrated the Windrush Generation. We welcomed Derrick Bobbington Thomas for a talk about his journey. He was the first ever person from the Windrush generation to become a Sergeant in the Royal Air Force. After the event, guests and students enjoyed a Caribbean inspired meal in our restaurant called Edmunds. Following on from this, we created a series of sessions with ‘untold heroes’ from the black community. We had authors, business people, DJs, a footballer, a model with her own clothing brand and two people (Alex Wheatle and Leroy Logan) whose stories were made into films as part of the Small Axe series created by the Oscar winning film director, Steve McQueen.
We involved local talent from the black community in Suffolk and their message was “dreams are not un-reachable, they are achievable.‘‘ Alongside this, we had an amazing performance from Wooden Roots whose music was featured in the Black Panther movie. Our students were also involved in workshops inviting diverse community groups, to be part of the Power of Stories Exhibition brought to Suffolk, with the iconic marvel costumes which was hosted by Colchester and Ipswich Museum.
Working together
The ongoing plan is to encourage others to adopt what we are doing in relation to teaching black history all year round. West Suffolk College is part of a family called the Eastern Colleges Group - a collective of post-16 education providers (West Suffolk College, Abbeygate Sixth Form and One Sixth Form), sharing the same strategic aims and committed to providing vocational and academic excellence to over 15,000 students across the region. As a result of the way we collaborate across the Group, one Sixth Form College has been inspired to work with us and they recently set up their own group at the college called Ethnic Youth Empowerment Society (EYES). Students from this group and the Sixth Form came along to many of our events and they are keen to collaborate with us in the future.
Behind all of this is the desire to bring about positive change not just in Suffolk but across the country. We want to create a sustainable model that others can adopt. All our events were filmed, and our own students had the opportunity to be part of this process, gaining work experience through filming the events and interviewing our iconic speakers. This footage could be shared with local schools and the community – as well as more national and potentially global audiences.
Hopefully, others will see what we are doing and be encouraged to do adapt the same approach.
Future plans
Looking ahead, we will be launching a new student equality, diversity and digital inclusion ambassador programme in September 2021, to give students opportunities to extend their employability skills for the future. The fact that ambassadors last year received awards in equality and diversity and were featured in local and national news programmes and articles will hopefully inspire others to get involved. The story of one of the ambassadors from last year is also another source of inspiration. Esther Ruse was on my health and social care course last year. By becoming an advocate for equality and diversity, she gained in confidence and started to pursue a career in music. A secret dream that she had never previously indulged. Amazingly, her work has been recognised and earlier this year she secured a record deal and she is currently in Los Angeles where she is pursuing her musical ambitions.
Personally, I’ve been influenced by so many people in my life, but the great Nelson Mandela is perhaps my ultimate source of inspiration. He famously said: “Education is the most powerful weapon to use to change to the world.”
This is what the equality and diversity team and I are trying to achieve at West Suffolk College. We hope others will work with us or on their own to help create an ongoing legacy.
Ellisha Soanes is equality and diversity digital coordinator and a Lecturer at West Suffolk College