Schools that diversified their curriculum and celebrated cultural diversity closed attainment gaps between pupils from different ethnic groups, a government study found.
The “small scale, exploratory” research report, probing multi-academy trust’s most successful strategies to bridging gaps, was commissioned in response to the Sewell report on race and ethnic disparities.
Researchers at Isos Partnership interviewed leaders at nine MATs and one local authority school. These included United Learning, The Harris Federation and Academies Enterprise Trust.
They found leaders stated “consistently” that while they used data showing the breakdown of ethnic groups, “they did not use ethnicity as a factor to identify pupils who needed intervention to close attainment gaps”.
