Teachers getting trained to support gay students

Wednesday 08 June 2016

A local charity is working to get a teacher in every Jersey secondary school trained up this year to support teenagers who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning.

Liberate have invited the UK charity Educate & Celebrate to the Channel Islands as part of Pride week in September and hope to get rid of homophobia, biphobia and transphobia from our schools.

Educate & Celebrate’s Founder Elly Barnes will be giving the Oftsted and DFE recognised training in both Jersey and Guernsey to help give staff, students, parents and governors the confidence and strategies to implement an LGBTQ inclusive curriculum.

Chairman of Liberate (Jersey) Christian May said: “Educate & Celebrate’s 2015 surveys revealed that almost half the students across the country are not receiving any form of LGBTQ inclusive education with 53% of schools not teaching about LGBTQ relationships and 49% of schools not teaching the definitions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans.

“Liberate’s conversations with island teachers and youth workers suggest that these figures are not going to be vastly different in the Channel Islands.

“It was, therefore, one of Liberate’s goals this year to have a teacher trained to support LGBTQ students in every secondary school in Jersey. Inviting Educate & Celebrate to deliver their CPD day for our secondary school teachers and youth workers is part of that strategic aim.”

Elly Barnes will be training up both teachers and those working with young children in Guernsey on Monday 12 September and in Jersey on Tuesday 13 September. She will be focusing on language, law, updating school policies and how to implement an LGBTQ inclusive curriculum.

Vice Chairman of Liberate (Guernsey) Ellie Jones said: “We are unbelievably lucky to have someone of Elly’s calibre coming over. She is definitely the perfect person to help us kick off our education programme with a bang.

“We had a fantastic meeting with Guernsey’s PSHE teachers recently, and we believe the Educate & Celebrate Best Practice Programme will give staff, students, and parents alike the tools they need to implement an LGBTQ inclusive environment that will help eradicate homophobia, bipohbia and transphobia from our schools, and in turn our community.”

Pride week runs from 10 to 17 September and Jersey teachers and youth workers can book tickets to the CPD study day here.