Education Support launches the Inclusive Staffroom for Global Majority educators

At a time when the wellbeing of education staff continues to face significant challenges, impacting on their wellbeing, Education Support's Inclusive Staffroom for global majority¹ educators seeks to make a meaningful contribution to addressing the effects of racism and exclusion within education workplaces.

Our research highlights the scale of the challenge. Across the education workforce, four in five staff report feeling stressed, and many experience poor mental health linked to their work. Against this backdrop, experiences of racism, discrimination and exclusion can place an additional burden on global majority educators, and have a considerable impact on their wellbeing.

With continued support from the Wesleyan Foundation, we are proud to respond to this evidence with a practical and positive offer

The Inclusive Staffroom brings together small groups of educators from Global Majority heritage to build supportive networks and create space for peer learning and reflection. It also provides a structured opportunity to explore how experiences of racism, discrimination, exclusion and othering shape professional identity and day-to-day working life.

Alongside these groups, we are facilitating a dedicated space for allies who want to take meaningful action to support inclusion within their school settings. Together, these spaces are designed to be safe, reflective and constructive – enabling honest conversations about lived experience, while focusing on what supports wellbeing and professional growth.

Participants explore questions such as:

• what it feels like to be a racialised teacher or leader today

• what sustains and supports them as professionals

• which workplace practices feel inclusive – and which create barriers

• how to navigate difficult moments and move towards repair in workplace relationships

Alongside peer support, participants can also access individual professional supervision. This offers a confidential space to reflect more deeply on their experiences, identity and wellbeing.

We take a workplace wellbeing approach to this work, recognising that wellbeing is shaped not just by individual resilience, but by the environments people work in. Experiences of racism, discrimination, exclusion and othering can significantly affect both individual and collective wellbeing. Our focus is on the lived experience of minoritised educators, and the impact this has on their ability to feel supported, valued and able to thrive at work.

The Inclusive Staffroom is part of our wider commitment to develop evidence-led, practical support that meets the needs of all education staff. Insights from the Inclusive Staffroom will directly inform how we continue to evolve our services and influence change across the sector.

[1] The term Global Majority includes those people who identify as Black, African, Asian, Brown, Arab and mixed heritage, are indigenous to the global south, and/or have been racialised as ‘ethnic minorities’. Globally, these groups currently represent approximately eighty-five percent of the world’s population, making them the Global Majority now (Campbell-Stephens, 2021)