Nothing Without Us

'In a perfect world, diversity, equity and inclusion would be an aspirational goal in any society, any classroom, any workplace.' This is a really short episode because I wanted to make an audio recording of a recent newsletter that has gone out from Being Luminary towers. And it's because it's been on my mind over the last couple of weeks. The newsletter itself was a response to some critique I h...

‘The system really needs to build in more accountability for it to do its work properly, and then to hold us to account for our silence and our avoidance of what are clearly institutional issues.’ I've been reflecting this week on the murder of Chris Kaba. And thinking about how two years ago, people were very, very exercised about the murder of George Floyd. There's been relatively little notice...

A quick update from Angie, about Season 2 of Being Luminary, which begins on Thursday 6th October 2022. Make sure you follow the podcast, wherever you're listening, so that you don't miss the new episodes coming soon.   Connect with Angie on her website - www.angelabrowne.co.uk A full transcript of this episode can be found at https://being-luminary.simplecast.com/episodes/looking-forward-to-seaso...

‘If you haven't got someone symbolising the strength and power of diversity, as well as having the systems to back it up. It fails, it doesn't work. Whenever we're doing anything, and whenever we're producing anything, we say why’ In this distilled episode Angie talks to Will Smith, CEO of Greenshaw Learning Trust, about using experience to motivate change, and bringing people onboard by embracing...

“There never is a barrier; it's only a perceived barrier” In this distilled episode Angie talks to Abby Bayford, Director of Institute at the Academy Transformation Trust, a national multi-academy trust, about discovering that difference can be talked about, and should be shared by the people who experience it. Abby has been a qualified teacher for 14 years, working in and supporting a range of sc...

"There have been thresholds in my life where I have actually dug into what I've thought, rather than be binary. I obviously got through, I did it through education. So I learned about the history of lesbian and gay and trans people. I learned about women's history, I learned about black history. And I learned that people have always navigated those boundaries, and those thresholds and created live...

"I've had to have a lot of conversations. I've been to a lot of funerals. But it's really important to do that stuff. And to be able to talk about it and support people through those situations, and being able to write to them and have the conversation rather than shy away from it and say to other people, you need to do that." In this distilled episode Angie talks to Dave Baker, CEO of the Olympus...

"I haven't got the knowledge. You know, we're sharing knowledge, we're transmitting that knowledge between us, we're shaping it between us. And sometimes that comes with truths, you know, things that are hard to swallow, things that are unpalatable, to kind of keep extending this metaphor. And that's okay." In this distilled episode, Angie talks to Bennie Kara about finding her identity in terms o...

“I think our beliefs about the world, yes, are are formed by the very big messages that we get. But I actually believe that they're even more informed and I don't know what the evidence is for this, this is just my view, but are even more formed by all the little things that happen to you on a day to day basis.”  In this distilled episode, Andy Buck talks about creating positive micro signals for...

“I started talking about an alternative improvement agenda that wasn't based on blaming people, wasn't based on labelling children, it wasn't based on tracking performance. It was essentially based on on openness and questioning and inventiveness and so on, that was all about a highly inclusive way of thinking about teaching and learning.” A second chance to hear Angie talk to Dame Alison Peacock,...

“When we think about parental engagement, I’m encouraging us to just sit in that space between praise and blame, and really lean into compassion and non-judgement.” In this solo episode of Being Luminary, Angie explores how we can cultivate fertile ground through trust, compassion and openness, to better work with parents as we strengthen our DEI work in schools. She ends with posing some question...

“It turned out that I could not be an innocent bystander, and the more I understood this, the more it became possible for people to ask me for help” In this episode Angie shares five of the prompts that she gives her podcast guests, to tease out their stories, and their personal reflections on diversity, equity and inclusion work. In doing so, she shares her own thoughts from her blog about the pr...

“Really luminary work is recalibrating around being better places to be, for everyone” In this solo episode of Being Luminary, Angie encourages you to stop playing DEI whack-a-mole and focus on being intersectional in all aspects of recruitment and retention. Angie highlights areas of recruitment that tend to be overlooked, and gives three practical ways to attract a more diverse talent pool. Conn...

‘If you haven't got someone symbolising the strength and power of diversity, as well as having the systems to back it up. It fails, it doesn't work. Whenever we're doing anything, and whenever we're producing anything, we say why’ In this episode Angie talks to Will Smith, CEO of Greenshaw Learning Trust, about using experience to motivate change, and bringing people onboard by embracing diversity...

“At the heart of diversity, equity, inclusion work for me, is a desire to be respectful enough to know who we remember and why.” In the wake of the terrorist attack in Buffalo, and the anniversary of the death of George Floyd, a reminder of why and for whom we do this work. Connect with Angie on her website - www.angelabrowne.co.uk A full transcript of this episode can be found at https://being-lu...

“There never is a barrier; it's only a perceived barrier” In this episode Angie talks to Abby Bayford, Director of Institute at the Academy Transformation Trust, a national multi-academy trust, about discovering that difference can be talked about, and should be shared by the people who experience it. Abby has been a qualified teacher for 14 years, working in and supporting a range of schools in t...

Is following a framework enough when it comes to diversity, equity, inclusion work? What motivates us to do the work? In this solo episode of Being Luminary, Angie looks at why it is important to explore the culture and practice of your organization as part of DEI work, and why one size may not fit all. Find out more about the Luminary Leadership of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Programme  visit...

“I got comfortable with challenge, challenging spaces, challenging people, challenging, being the question asker, being the disrupter, I guess, because that's how my family viewed me. The coming out was disruptive.”  In this episode Angie talks to Claire Stewart-Hall founder of Equitable Coaching . Claire served as a leader in schools in the UK for twenty years in urban areas of economic disadvant...

“I suppose I want to move beyond the point of staff, being nervous and feeling they can't say stuff because they're frightened, they're not going to say the right stuff, we got to get beyond that and just start to be honest about where, where we're uncomfortable, and start to confront the uncomfortable so that we can move into a different place.”  In this episode Angie talks to Dave Baker, CEO of...

“I think luminary work … is a process of truth gathering, and acknowledging that there are truths that you might not be comfortable with. So you know, the questions you ask of yourself, as a teacher, for example - what are the truths of our workplace? What are the truths for the adults and what truths for the children and recognising the truth for someone else, might be completely different from y...

“I think our beliefs about the world, yes, are are formed by the very big messages that we get. But I actually believe that they're even more informed and I don't know what the evidence is for this, this is just my view, but are even more formed by all the little things that happen to you on a day to day basis.”  In this episode Angie talks to Andy Buck about his teaching career, his regret at not...

How do we create psychological safety for people who hold marginalised and intersectional identities? How do we support people who hold these identities in bringing their voices into the organisation that we're working in creatively, in ways that will actually help our organisations develop, in ways that will actually help our organisations become luminary?  Find out more about the Luminary Leader...

“I started talking about an alternative improvement agenda that wasn't based on blaming people, wasn't based on labelling children, it wasn't based on tracking performance. It was essentially based on on openness and questioning and inventiveness and so on, that was all about a highly inclusive way of thinking about teaching and learning.” In this episode Angie talks to Dame Alison Peacock, Chief...

Trigger warning - this podcast contains depictions of both physical and emotional torture and pain. Listener discretion is advised.   Somebody asked me recently, what I thought might be different about my life, had I been born in a different skin in less brown skin? And my immediate response was, how could I possibly know? We none of us really know, do we, what the other person experiences. But th...

Introducing Being Luminary, the new podcast from Angie Browne. In this podcast, you are going to get to hear a combination of my thoughts on how we can be luminary. I'm going to be talking across this vast topic area of diversity, equity and inclusion. I'm going to be shining a light on the complexities of holding some of these marginalized and intersectional identities. I'm going to be talking th...