One of the themes running through many of our updates this time around is diversity. As we write in them:

While calls for a more diverse curriculum are not new, events this year have brought the issue back sharply into focus. Let’s not lose this window of opportunity to make a meaningful, lasting change to our … curricula, embedding diversity, not simply paying lip-service to the notion that we should.

This is an issue about which we feel passionately, but, as two white women from South-East England, we’re painfully aware that we are horribly unqualified to be writing about this topic with any level of insight or authority.

But we’re trying, and we’ll continue to try. One of the things we’ve realised researching these updates is that a token, bolt-on gesture is no good. We haven’t written a diversity update with the intention of forgetting about it and moving on. We’ll be reading, listening and learning; striving to embed diversity into our thinking, and therefore into our updates, from now on.

No doubt we’ll continue to make mistakes, but we intend to approach the process with “empathy, flexibility and communication” (as per Jimmy Rotherham’s advice), and to improve as we go.

As always, we’d be delighted to hear any thoughts or feedback you may have on this process, and how we can do better.