Member Of Staff Award

Warren Grant, a pastoral team member at Ormiston Forge Academy, has received an award for inclusivity and diversity by Ormiston Academies Trust (OAT) for his efforts to combat discrimination.

The Academy, which forms part of the Ormiston Academies Trust (OAT) is committed to creating a safe and inclusive environment across all of its academies, which Warren has gone the extra mile to ensure continues.

As a staff member Warren Grant has enabled Ormiston Forge Academy to become an organisation that is actively anti-racist.

At the time of George Floyd’s death, when students pressed the Academy on how they could do more together, Warren helped them express their frustrations in a productive way that would foster action. He empowered staff by making it acceptable to have conversations about how the Academy could improve and be actively anti-racist, using the power of equity to develop equality and ensure that the curriculum reflected the modern world.

Throughout this period, Warren has been adamant that the academy can help to make the world a better place for all children to grow up in.

During Black History Month, Warren produced and shared reading material with staff, while he also was instrumental in introducing the Academy’s diversity group, which includes students and staff and is part of the curriculum review group that is already having an impact on year 7.

Thanks to Warren’s leadership, the Academy became the first Halo School in the West Midlands, a status which ensures no black staff or students should have to change their natural or protective hairstyle in order to thrive. This is as part of the Academy’s wider efforts to ensure it is tackling issues of discrimination on all fronts.

More recently, Warren has used these same empathetic skills to discuss international issues with engaged students and is also working across all faiths in the Academy to set up a shared place of worship.

Dr Lisa Mason, Principal at Ormiston Forge Academy, said: “Warren is known across the Academy as an approachable, true team-player, who people look to for leadership. He is helping the academy to fight discrimination in the world free discrimination, and we are extremely proud to stand alongside him.