How the Centre works
The Centre for Equity in Education works with local authorities, schools, voluntary and community services, and their partners, to develop more effective ways of meeting the needs of vulnerable and marginalised learners who lose out under current arrangements. To ensure that its activities make a difference and help to break these patterns of inequity, the Centre works from the following principles:
- Education has to be understood in context. Responses to issues of inequity must be tailored to local circumstances and the specific challenges they present.
- Education works as a system. It is the structures and processes at work in education systems (both formal and informal) which create and perpetuate inequities and can be changed to enhance equity.
- Responses to the challenges of inequity have to be collaborative. Responses must draw on the knowledge, expertise and creativity of a wide range of stakeholders, all with a shared commitment to equity.
The Centre has taken these principles forward through an innovative programme of work. This involves three interrelated strands of activity, which together, enable the development and implementation of robust and sustainable responses to inequities. These strands are:
1. Monitoring:
- understanding what really happens to vulnerable learners at the local level
- exploring issues hidden by league tables and test scores
- identifying promising practices and new directions for change
2. Synthesising:
- drawing together what is already known about working with vulnerable learners
- creating models of practice to work in different settings
- disseminating good practice
3. Intervening:
Collaborating with schools, local authorities, voluntary and community groups and their partners to:
- develop new ways of thinking and working
- develop, implement and monitor interventions
- build capacity and identify resources for change in disadvantaged neighbourhoods
- revise current strategies and build on successes.
The posters below set out the Centre's working methods in more detail, and give concrete examples of how the Centre's D&R process has been used in school and local authority settings.
- Poster 1: What do we do? (PDF, 102 KB)
- Poster 2: What and how do we monitor? (PDF, 110 KB)
- Poster 3: How do we intervene? (PDF, 119 KB)
- Poster 4: How do interventions work in schools? (PDF, 105 KB)