Eight Steps for a More LGBT+ Friendly School
The Focus On Bullying report by the Anti-Bullying Alliance found that victimisation was significantly higher for LGBT+ than heterosexual pupils.
It is not acceptable that any young person should be victimised because of who they are or who they like. But many schools around the UK are working hard to ensure that their pupils, regardless of their sexual orientation, feel supported, included and safe.
To support schools, we’ve put together eight steps you can take to make your school more LGBT+ friendly.
1. Educate pupils about homophobic language, explain how it can be hurtful and give them the confidence to speak out to their friends if they hear them use the language.
2. Give students a safe space to talk to teachers and safeguarding leads about any concerns. With more children preferring to go online for support, tootoot is a great platform to support this in schools.
3. Talk about LGBT+ history in the classroom, our free Pride toolkit has primary and secondary resources to support your conversations.
4. Host a Pride event in school and celebrate diversity.
5. Put up LGBT+ friendly posters and flags around the school. This can help LGBT+ pupils feel more trusting and comfortable talking to teachers about any issues.
6. Let pupils identify themselves on the first day of class, ask them to fill out a name card with their preferred name and pronoun.
7. Ensure the school library has books with LGBT+ themes.
8. Pupil-led LGBT+ committees are a great way to get everyone engaged in making school a LGBT+ friendly place through events and different initiatives.
Would you like to try our free Pride toolkit?
It includes targeted LGBT+ resources, six weeks access to tootoot and six weeks access to tootmood – available to the first 100 schools that sign-up.
