Embracing and embedding diversity in school culture and practice

Embracing and embedding diversity in school culture and practice is a session for School Leaders from PETAA's 2021 Leading with Literacy Conference: Powerful Practices for all Learners, and is presented by Maryanne Gosling.

About the presenter: Maryanne Gosling is an education leader with over 25 years of experience in a range of education settings across Australia. As a life-long learner herself, she is passionate about leading her teams to engage and inspire students to be their very best selves. Maryanne joined Autism Spectrum Australia (Aspect) in January 2020 as National Director, Aspect Education and is devoted to ensuring that no student on the Autism Spectrum is left behind. 

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• Answer the question ‘What does a truly diverse and inclusive environment look like?’
• Analyse the elements required to lead this transformation in a school.
• Look at the planning process; understanding participants; identifying the current state and the right resourcing to defining the future state; considering the elements that will be impacted; harnessing the strengths of all involved; and, finally, providing people with the tools required to reach the desired outcome.
• Discover how teachers can stay up to date with the latest innovative and effective strategies for engaging students with autism and their unique needs.

In this session, Maryanne Gosling discusses how we can transform our school environments for inclusion and embed it into our culture and practice.

To do this, we need our existing capable workforce of educators, and environments that prepare students to effectively transition to the next phase of life through accessible learning.

Maryanne shares that some of the key parts of these accessible learning environments include making accommodations; effective, individualised support; and equality in educational access.

These plans can only be made by including the voices of our diverse students (and their parents), so Maryanne asks us - how do we make those voices part of the transformation process?

"Nothing about us, without us"

This is one of the mottos at ASPECT education, and is a great quote to use in all educational inclusion modelling. First, we need to find out more about our diverse learners by asking them to share their perspective. Then we can set objectives to work on together, and form a mindset to grow in a way that is directly relevant to inclusion.

To learn about each student, we can use this five point star model:

When we know what a student (from any background, not just on the Autism spectrum) likes, fears, and needs, we can help to form an environment that is just right for them. 

By understanding these learnings, and listening to their voices, we can begin to embed diversity and inclusion in our schools' culture and practice. 

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