Gender Pay Gap Reporting

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 2025 data provides positive indicators of a reduction in the mean gender pay gap, from 20.2% to 19.06%.

We employ a greater proportion of women than men across all quartiles, with women making up more than 60% of the upper pay quartile. This has grown by 2% in the past year. At present 61.5% of the Executive Team and 63.6% of Principals at the CLF are female, both up from last year.

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 for this year to address the gender pay gap include:

• A continued commitment to supporting women into leadership roles.
• Ensuring all part time directed time budgets are reviewed to ensure workload of part time teachers (often women) are proportionate and do not impact the retention of women in teaching roles.
• Launching a parenting community network to connect parents across the federation, in particular new mums.
• A review of maternity guidance and training for line managers ensuring inclusive practice, particularly around access to rooms to pump for returning mums.
• Launch of neonatal policy within new combined family leave policy.
• Further work to promote awareness and support around menopause by launching a champions network.
• Careful curation of topics for our summer conference to be able to offer sessions particularly pertinent to women, e.g. maternity and menopause.
• Continuation of training for managers on positive management to ensure all staff are supported in their roles.
• Review of advert template to ensure the offer of flexibility is consistent in adverts and where possible leadership roles state if part time will be considered.
• Completion of job evaluation project, ensuring parity in pay for all professional services roles across the federation.
• Ensure all recruiting managers take part in training on unconscious bias, combined with a continued commitment to annual EDI training for all colleagues.
• Complete a review of the actions taken in response to the Sexual Harassment Mandatory Duty to consider impact and how we can continue to positively respond to and promote our position.