Detailed guide: Equality and diversity fund: for school-led projects

Apply for grant funding to co-ordinate school-led equality and diversity projects in your region.

Apply

The application round for 2018 to 2020 funding for a regional hub lead school in the East Midlands and the Humber region closed on 11 June.

We are pleased to confirm that Skipton Girls High School has been appointed as the regional hub lead school for the East Midlands and the Humber region. This appointment is in addition to their role as regional hub lead school for the North of England region.

For details of all the regional hub lead schools who have been successful in their application for grant funding for onward allocation to individual school projects, please review the list of 2018 to 2020 successful schools.

If you wish to be informed of any future application rounds, please contact [email protected].

Overview

The equality and diversity fund supports schools to develop local solutions that help teachers covered by at least one of the protected characteristics as defined in the Equality Act 2010 progress into leadership. The protected characteristics are:

• age
• disability
• gender reassignment
• marriage and civil partnership
• pregnancy and maternity
• race
• religion or belief
• sex
• sexual orientation

The fund reinforces the government’s commitment to increasing the diversity of school leadership and maximising the number of leaders available by raising aspirations and the chances of successful promotion among people with leadership potential.

We invited lead schools to apply for grant funding in 2018 to 2019 and 2019 to 2020. Funding was awarded to one regional hub lead school in each of the seven regional school commissioner (RSC) regions. Funding has now been awarded to Skipton Girls High School to support provision in the East Midland and the Humber Region. Skipton is also the regional hub lead school for the North of England region. Regional hub lead schools will be responsible for allocating funding to individual school-led projects and for coordinating the fund across their region. This should lead to greater national coverage and opportunities to scale up best practice delivery models and for lead schools to act as a hub across regions

All projects must be designed and delivered by schools offering tailored leadership development activity to aspiring leaders from underrepresented groups, based on an audit of local needs.

Review the list of 2018 to 2020 successful schools for details of the regional hub lead schools successful in their applications for grant funding for onward allocation to individual school projects.

Analysis of participant surveys in the Leadership Equality and Diversity Fund is available:

• 2016 to 2017 and 2017 to 2018 programmes

• 2015 to 2016 programme

Dates

Who can apply

Lead schools graded outstanding or good for overall effectiveness by Ofsted in their most recent inspection can apply for the fund. They must:

• be able to demonstrate a strong commitment to increasing the diversity of school leadership in their region
• have the capability, capacity and infrastructure to administer grant funding, co-ordinate delivery and quality assure multiple school-led projects across their region

Role and responsibilities of regional hub lead schools

Regional hub lead schools will be responsible for:

• the effective, efficient and appropriate use of all grant funding they receive including guarding against fraud
• ensuring that all conditions of the grant are met
• running a fair and transparent process to facilitate the allocation of funding to schools for the design and delivery of school-led projects, and running an audit of this
• ensuring that each project demonstrates need relating to the protected characteristics (where appropriate)
• ensuring maximum geographical coverage within their region, based on need, including in opportunity areas
• putting in place formal arrangements with each individual school delivering a project for example service level agreements or memorandum of understanding
• monitoring school-led project progress and ensuring delivery against milestones and key performance indicators (KPIs)
• supporting schools by building new, and/or working with established school networks across their region, and enabling the sharing of best practice
• supporting schools in negotiating any partnership agreement (including data handling, intellectual property for example) with strategic partners
• effective risk management
• putting appropriate quality assurance arrangements in place
• collecting and collating financial and performance information including progress against KPIs
• reporting on all aspects of the programme, for example performance against KPIs, providing financial returns. Lead schools will be asked to report in writing once per term outlining the progress of all projects
• undertaking evaluation activities as requested by the department including issuing participant surveys to participants and collecting teacher reference numbers (TRNs)
• participating fully in any external evaluation commissioned by the department
• providing case studies as requested by the department

Contact us

Equality and Diversity

Email[email protected]

Published 20 May 2014
Last updated 28 January 2019 + show all updates

1. 28 January 2019 Added links to analysis of surveys of participants in Leadership Equality and Diversity Fund, 2015 to 2018.
2. 19 July 2018 Changed the title to reflect the new name and to remove outdated information following the announcement of the successful applicant.
3. 8 May 2018 Added application details for the East Midlands and the Humber region.
4. 29 March 2018 Changes made to the ‘Apply’ section to reflect the end of the 2018 to 2020 application round and how to see the list of successful schools.
5. 16 February 2018 Updated guide as the 2017 to 2018 application round has closed.
6. 15 December 2017 Application round is now open.
7. 21 September 2016 Application round has now closed
8. 14 July 2016 Application round now open
9. 24 April 2015 Application round now closed.
10. 20 March 2015 Leadership equality and diversity WebEx slides added.
11. 3 March 2015 Application round is now open
12. 10 November 2014 Application round for the equality and diversity grant funding has closed.
13. 20 May 2014 First published.

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