School Stories Awards 2021 – Best use of Twitter

Our entry for the Best use of Twitter Award 2021

In July 2020, Hurst College appointed a Director of Diversity and Inclusion (D&I). The role was created to develop a better understanding and awareness of issues surrounding race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, disability, class and religion.

The first task was to create pupil and staff D&I platforms to share ideas and develop initiatives. This led to a school-wide competition to create a new mantra with D&I at its heart, resulting in a new school motto of #Be#Yourself@Hurst.

In September 2020, a Head of Pupil D&I was appointed, and with so many individuals keen to get involved, further subgroups were created to enable more specifically focused communities such as the LGBTQIA+ group named READI (Rainbow Education Alliance of Diverse Individuals), Disability Awareness Network, Racial Inclusivity and Prep School Ambassadors.

The D&I platforms organised support for numerous events including Black History Month, Disability Awareness Week and the one which the College believes was the most successful so far, Pride History Month. With the switch to remote learning, it would have been easy to forego the D&I initiatives but pupil and staff members embraced the opportunity to lead Pride History Month online and reach out further to include the wider Hurst community (including pupils’ families and former pupils).

The daily Twitter posts attracted a plethora of schools and companies, as many made contact to commend the College for going ‘above and beyond’ and for facilitating these important conversations. The twitter posts also led to engagement with a number of high-profile personalities who agreed to speak to the Hurst community – something that would otherwise have been difficult to achieve.

As a result of the Pride History Month Twitter campaign, the college is now collaborating with DiverseEd on a new series ‘A conversation with…’, focusing on how to make schools more accepting, diverse and inclusive. The Director of D&I has also been invited, along with the pupil platform, to represent the College at the Empowering Young Changemakers event – an opportunity for pupils to showcase their D&I work and to see what other schools are doing.

The engagement and feedback to the Twitter campaign from the Hurst College community and beyond has been first class. The eloquence, respect and genuine interest reinforced why it’s important that the college engaged in celebrating Pride History Month.

Please download our submission below.