The Cabot Learning Federation (CLF) maintains an unwavering commitment to a diverse workforce which is truly representative of its students and equipped to support their ambitions and life chances.
Strategic goals for the years ahead – set out in Equity Through Education – include a pledge to invest in our people. That means we will continue to recruit, retain, grow and develop the very best people to ensure we deliver an outstanding education for our students. We will seek out thought-seekers, pioneers and benchmark-setters and support them to grow, develop, pursue career progression, and reach their potential.
We take pride in the CLF culture of high inclusion and high engagement, where people feel respected and valued; we want our teams to feel they belong, and are supported to succeed. Our EDI strategy reinforces a CLF-wide ethos which includes a commitment to advancing equal opportunities for all, and eliminating discrimination on any basis.
In an organisation where three quarters of the workforce are female, a commitment to fair treatment of all staff irrespective of gender is clear. It is embodied through the CLF’s transparent recruitment processes, pay policy and professional development opportunities, and anchored in our HEART values.
Direct initiatives to tackle our gender pay gap are aligned with our mission to create equity of opportunity by promoting inclusion, removing disadvantage and rejecting discrimination.
Our 2024 data provides positive indicators of a reduction in the mean gender pay gap, from 20.6% to 20.2%.
We employ a greater proportion of women than men across all quartiles, with women making up more than 60% of the upper pay quartile. Currently, 60% of the CLF’s Executive Team and 58% of our Principals are female.
In the lower quartile, women account for more than 80% of the population, which in part reflects the nature of these roles and is consistent with wider occupational segregation in society.
The value of this data is in the questions it raises and the subsequent actions we take to further refine our equality and diversity agenda. It is encouraging to see our actions are making a difference, but appreciate there is still more we need to do.
Actions to further reduce the gender pay gap include:
- A data-driven wellbeing sub-strategy to drive initiatives to support staff at work, including wellness apps, line manager training and training in mental health first aid.
- A commitment to regular wellbeing check-ins through systems and structures related to professional development, and an approach to share responsibility for wellbeing that supports proactive action and discussion of opportunities to stay well at work.
- Continued commitment to reviewing workload for teachers, scheduling preparation, planning and assessment time and directing time well.
- An equality, diversity and inclusion sub-strategy which covers various strands of work, part of which is to continue to gather, analyse and report back on staffing data to our Board and leaders and use this insight to inform our practice and focus.
- Positive management training to ensure all staff are supported in their roles.
- Sessions on topics particularly pertinent to women at our summer conference, including menopause, maternity leave and flexible working.
- Improved family-friendly policies and guidance to be in place by autumn 2024.
- Assessing the gender impact of all new CLF policies and change projects via equality impact assessments and continuing to develop policy and practice that benefits women.
- Developing and monitoring our methods to attract and retain women leaders, including succession planning to identify talented female colleagues and encouraging uptake of development and progression opportunities.
- Promoting flexible working in leadership roles by offering part-time working where possible, exploring the option of job-share and supporting women returning from maternity leave through a range of flexible options and better understanding the challenges facing those with caring responsibilities and women returning to work.
- Reviewing our attraction and selection strategies to increase the number of men in all roles throughout the organisation.
- Improved careers webpages to share staff stories and sell the benefits of working for the CLF. Promoting flexible options where available, such as term-time-only contracts and hybrid working.
- Continuing the job evaluation of professional services staff by focusing on pastoral and other education support roles to ensure they are paid a fair wage and structures are well designed with parity across the trust.
