Recruitment & HR

Our recruitment services focus on attracting, sourcing, and selecting underrepresented talent for your school. Acknowledging the historic challenges that have contributed to Black talent not being adequately recruited, feeling supported, or retained in teaching roles, we help you understand and address often overlooked barriers to entry and retention, helping you create a more inclusive and supportive environment.

However, diverse recruitment is by no means an EDI fix and is separate in many respects from embedding EDI into the institution itself. Racial inclusion should not be the responsibility of minoritised staff unless they choose to take it on. To ensure that recruitment efforts are authentic, integrated, and long-lasting, we work with your school on other key areas such as admissions and cultural competency. We know, through the work that we have undertaken with schools, that this holistic approach helps create a more inclusive environment that fosters sustainable change.

AUDITING SERVICES

Process Analysis
A detailed review of your current HR processes to identify any gaps or biases that may negatively impact Black and minority ethnic employees.

Procedure Review
We assess your existing HR policies and procedures to ensure they promote fairness and inclusivity in the workplace.

Audit of Areas Impacting Black and Minority Ethnic Candidates
We audit key areas of your school’s HR practices to identify barriers faced by Black and minority ethnic candidates during recruitment and employment.

RECRUITMENT SERVICES

Advertising Roles Across the ACEN Network
We promote your job vacancies to a broad network, ensuring they reach a diverse audience of potential candidates.

Shortlisting Criteria Review
We ensure your selection criteria are inclusive and fair, helping you identify the best candidates from a broad range of backgrounds.

Review of Interview Techniques
We analyse your interview techniques to ensure they promote inclusivity and fairness, helping you improve the way you assess candidates.

Designing a Positive Candidate Experience
We help design a recruitment process that is inclusive and ensures candidates have a positive experience from application to feedback.

Feedback on Interview Processes
We provide expert feedback on your interview style, selection criteria, and the overall process, ensuring diversity and fairness are prioritised.

Interviewing Alongside the Panel
Our experts attend interviews with your panel to offer additional insights, ensuring all candidates are assessed fairly and thoroughly.

HR SERVICES

Strategy for Retention of Black and Minority Ethnic Teachers
We work with you to develop strategies for retaining Black and minority ethnic teachers, ensuring they receive the necessary support to thrive in your school.

Mentorship Programmes
We facilitate the connection of Black teachers with senior leaders, fostering professional development and mentorship opportunities.

Wellbeing Sessions
We offer facilitated, solution-focused wellbeing sessions for minoritised teachers, both with and without EDI responsibilities. Led by Dr Ama Collison, these individual or group sessions focus on addressing challenges faced by underrepresented staff, as well as EDI-related practice issues. For more information, click here.

RECRUITMENT & HR TESTIMONIALS

ACEN helped us navigate our processes and the multi-faceted complexities of recruitment and retention as an organisation and individuals. Delivery in the sessions was judgement free, with a rapport established quickly with the groups which created a safe space for discussion, questions and suggestions. The approach was to look both broadly and at the individual experience, and challenging conversations were balanced with dataensuring the session was also solution driven. Data and fact underpin the messaging and is rigorous, ensuring there is the time to problem solve and move forward.

Our roadmap (originally developed by Dr Malcolm Cocks) and action planning has 5 core actions with recruitment and retention being core to shifting mindsets and culture and becoming more diverse in our staff body. This helps us see where we are on the map, what is working in terms of our actioning and how to develop this further. Whilst we have the actions and planning in place the knowledge gleaned from the sessions has helped boost how this understanding can now be widespread and ‘lived’ in what we do throughout our processes.

Further to this the importance of recruiting broadly from the practical aspects of where we advertise and reach out and how we retain and support staff. The impacts are being seen in the recruitment process with practical actions and processes tweaked and in place, this is ongoing and continually reflected on and reviewed. The importance of having consistent messaging through training and our ongoing partnership with ACEN is ensuring our full staff body is becoming (and maintaining) an inclusive anti racist organisation.

Sue Mullholand, Director EDI

African Caribbean Education Netwrok - Anti Racism Conference Attendees - City of London School

The diverse recruitment and HR session was wonderfully delivered. It has prompted a few immediate actions, and provided a greater sense of urgency to proposed medium and long term goals. It has also underlined the need for continual reflection.

Basher Savage, EDI Lead 

Wimbledon High School has been working in partnership with the African Caribbean Education Network for the past two years. ACEN have played a vital role in our Diversity & Inclusion strategy, helping us reflect upon what it means to be inclusive, and shape the support offered to our staff, students, and families. The ACEN consultants have been warm, insightful, and knowledgeable partners in building a framework where our school can ensure we are accessible, welcoming, and supportive of a diverse range of talented individuals whether they be staff or students.

The consultants have worked closely with our staff to deliver different aspects of ACEN’s consultancy and their insights into our outward-facing communications, applications, and overall Human Resources perspective have been invaluable. ACEN’s recommendations have felt authentic, measured, and have helped us enact changes that have made a tangible difference. Wimbledon High School has never believed in performative statements, and by partnering with innovators like Aisha and Shola, we are able to use metrics that hold leaders and our community to account, where we are able to not only visually and tangibly experience change, but measure and quantify it, for the betterment of all.

Our staff and students instantly connected with the ACEN team. Their consultancy has been professionally informative and supportive for our staff and has enhanced the conversations that are necessary to ensure every voice is heard and understood. ACEN’s consultation has been a huge part of our inclusion strategy that has helped Black families and children within our WHS community and something that we are truly grateful and incredibly proud of.

Fionnuala Kennedy, Head

We had ACEN visit CLSG not too long ago for a training session on recruitment with our senior management team and all spoke highly of the training.

Soumia Arif, EDI Lead