SIKH ACADEMIES TRUST
This case study illustrates how a long-term, trust-wide approach to inclusion — supported by lived-experience data — can move from insight to implementation, and ultimately to sector influence.
The Sikh Academies Trust (SAT) is a multi-phase trust committed to delivering education rooted in its core values of RAISE: Respect, Aspire, Integrity, Seva and Equality.
Across its schools, the Trust places a strong emphasis on supporting pupils to develop not only academically, but also as thoughtful, responsible and confident members of society. Inclusion, belonging and community engagement are central to this approach.
As the Trust explains:
“Teaching diversity and equality to our students will help instil our RAISE values that will support their growth throughout their younger years and into adult life.”
These values reflect a leadership commitment to ensuring pupils understand both their responsibilities to others and their place within a diverse and evolving society.
Beginning with Pioneer Secondary Academy
The partnership with the Global Equality Collective began with Pioneer Secondary Academy, which opened in May 2022 in Stoke Poges, South Buckinghamshire.
Leaders joined the GEC Platform through an initial three-year membership commitment, beginning with benchmarking to understand internal attitudes and lived experiences relating to diversity, equality and inclusion across the school community.
This work supported leaders to:
understand student and staff perspectives on belonging
identify priority areas for development
strengthen engagement across the school community
shape future inclusion activity using evidence-informed insight
Following the success of this initial phase, the Trust extended its engagement beyond Pioneer Secondary to include primary provision and wider trust-level activity, supported by Harmeet Sahota, now Executive Headteacher across the Trust, helping embed a connected approach to belonging across phases.
Turning lived-experience insight into student learning
As an extension of their GEC Platform membership, Pioneer Secondary Academy invited the Global Equality Collective to deliver a series of GEC Circle workshop days shaped directly by school insight.
These sessions supported student learning in key areas including:
anti-racism
toxic masculinity
identity and representation
online safety and digital behaviour
aspiration and careers awareness
Delivered through a hybrid “GEC Takeover”, this programme brought GEC Circle experts directly into the school and virtually for two days of personalised workshops for students from Years 7–12.
A further programme followed in February 2023, focusing on radical misogyny and the influence of online culture, responding to emerging challenges affecting young people nationally.
Expert-led sessions supporting confidence and culture
Workshop contributors included members of the GEC Circle working directly with students and staff:
Dr Holly Powell-Jones (Founder, Online Media Law UK)
Delivered workshops exploring crime, consent and social media law.
Matt Pinkett (Teacher, Education Consultant specialising in Masculinity, l & Misogyny. Author of Boys Don’t Try and Amazon 100 Best Seller, Boys Do Cry and the new Unmaksing the Manosphere 2026.)
Led sessions examining toxic masculinity and supporting students to:
challenge harmful behaviours
become stronger listeners
reflect on representation and identity
Andrew “Bernie” Bernard (Motivational and Inspirational Speaker. Author, Build the Ladder)
Explored aspiration, opportunity and career pathways.
Michaela Lawson (Founder, The Prosperity Project now BARE (Building Anti Racist Education) CIC)
Delivered anti-racism sessions exploring:
identity
racial markers
institutional and interpersonal racism
everyday experiences of bias
Strong engagement from staff and students
Staff reflected positively on the depth of student engagement:
“Highly important — very engaging. Response is excellent!”
Femi Awosile, Teacher of Science and Maths
“I have never seen the students get so involved in discussion. I am so glad they were open and ready to have these difficult conversations.”
Sanaa Harb, Head of Learning (Years 7 & 8)
“I would highly recommend the GEC and their team for student workshops and staff CPD. It's really important to have those deeper conversations led by experts in our field. An assembly or PSHE lesson barely scratches the surface in comparison.”
GEC Circle contributors also highlighted the quality of student participation:
“Even the youngest students impressed me with how they were able to engage in thoughtful discussions on complex issues like law, crime and consent in a digital context.”
Dr Holly Powell-Jones
“It’s witnessing those ‘lightbulb moments’ that inspires us to believe students can change the future.”
Michaela Lawson
School leaders reflected:
“By teaching these topics each student now has access to a safe place to question, discuss, explore and form their values and opinions. Working with the GEC has allowed us to challenge negative attitudes and stereotypes whilst providing our students with a greater understanding of an evolving society we live in.”
Continuing student voice and engagement
As part of the Trust’s ongoing work with the Global Equality Collective, in 2025 the new Primary School, Khalsa Primary, was also onboarded to the GEC Platform as part of our new Student Module. Inclusion Champion, Ellen Day, supported a Trust wide inclusion strategy with the GEC Platform at the heart of it capturing student voice from early years across all ages into secondary.
Pioneer Secondary Academy has since welcomed additional GEC Circle speakers to support students in exploring identity, safety and wellbeing in today’s digital and social environments.
In the latest school-wide student workshops, students took part in sessions with Dr Holly Powell-Jones, digital criminologist, who led workshops on online safety and grooming awareness. These sessions helped students recognise the importance of identifying both green flags and red flags when navigating digital spaces and relationships.
Students also heard from Tommy Hatto, actor, model and body image advocate, who spoke about colourism and shared his personal experiences to support reflection on identity, confidence and self-worth.
The school reflected:
“We were pleased to welcome two very inspiring speakers to our school: Dr Holly Powell-Jones and Tommy Hatto.
Dr Holly spoke to our students about online safety and grooming. She helped them understand the crucial green flags and red flags to watch for when navigating the online world. Her expert advice is helping them stay safe in today’s increasingly complex digital space.
Students also had the opportunity to hear from Tommy Hatto, who shared his insights on colourism, and his personal journey inspired students to think critically about identity and self-worth.
We’re so grateful for these empowering talks, giving our students the tools they need to navigate both the online and offline world safely and confidently.”
These sessions built on earlier workshop days shaped by student voice insight and reflect the Trust’s continued commitment to supporting pupils to engage confidently with complex social issues affecting their lives both inside and outside school.
Extending the work across the Trust
Following the success of the initial Pioneer Secondary programme, Sikh Academies Trust extended its engagement across additional phases.
Student workshop days continue to be shaped directly by school insight, ensuring activity reflects the lived experiences of learners rather than generic programme delivery.
This approach supports the Trust’s commitment to embedding belonging and inclusion as part of everyday school culture across its settings.
Sharing student voice at sector level
As the partnership developed, Sikh Academies Trust and Pioneer Secondary Academy took their work beyond the school and onto the national stage.
In 2024, Trust Inclusion Champion Ellen Day, alongside students from Pioneer Secondary School, joined Dr Nicole Ponsford at the Festival of Education at Wellington College to share their experiences of co-designing the GEC Platform’s student surveys.
Students spoke about how their input helped shape areas including:
inclusion
belonging
safety
engagement
representation
Together, they presented to a packed audience of educators and system leaders, demonstrating the impact of placing student voice at the centre of school improvement.
Reflecting on the session, the team shared:
“We kicked off the morning hearing from the most important people — the students themselves. We’ve already had so many important conversations covering everything inclusion.”
“It’s great to be part of the Festival of Education alongside educators and experts from across the UK to talk, listen and learn.”
Continuing the conversation at system level
In 2025, the Trust returned to the Festival of Education as part of the BAMEed and Global Equality Collective inclusion strand.
Chaired by GEC Circle and BAME SEND founder, Frances Akinde, Harmeet Sahota (Executive Headteacher) and Ellen Day (Trust Inclusion Champion) were joined by GEC Founding CEO, Dr Nicole Ponsford to share how data for inclusion using the GEC Platform had evolved across the Trust — moving from insight to implementation and impact.
Their contribution focused on:
how student voice informed trust-wide strategy
how inclusion work strengthened belonging across phases
the role of leadership in embedding inclusive culture
the wider impact on school community and engagement
This progression from school-level practice to sector-level influence reflects the Trust’s commitment to not only leading inclusion internally, but also contributing to wider system change.
What’s Next? Watt’s Possible - Supporting future careers through
Watt’s Possible? | Curiosity to Career ⚡
In the Autumn of 2025, Sikh Academies Trust joined the ID Nuclear partnership pilot, Watt’s Possible? | Curiosity to Career, alongside two other GEC partner trusts (2025/26).
Through this programme, the Global Equality Collective is working with the nuclear industry organisation, ID Nuclear, to support more diverse student engagement with STEM career pathways.
Students from SAT schools are taking part in activities designed to:
broaden awareness of careers in nuclear and engineering sectors
strengthen aspiration and confidence
increase representation across future workforce pathways
connect curriculum learning to real-world opportunity
Over 300 Year 9 students across three trusts have now contributed to shaping future career pathways through our ‘Nothing About Us Without Us’ methodology.
This work builds directly on earlier student voice insight gathered through the GEC Platform and reflects our Trust’s commitment to preparing pupils for diverse and equitable future careers in emerging industries.
When trusts listen to student voice, inclusion becomes part of everyday learning — not a one-off initiative.
Sikh Academies Trust demonstrates how lived-experience insight can shape meaningful conversations with young people and strengthen belonging across phases.
This work has developed over time. Like all meaningful organisational change, building an inclusive culture is not instant — it takes sustained focus, reflection and action over several years. Through its partnership with the Global Equality Collective, the Trust has embedded a long-term approach to inclusion, supported by data, student voice and ongoing development.
As this work has evolved, leaders have seen the impact reflected not only in improved Ofsted outcomes, but also in growing demand from families — moving from under-subscribed to over-subscribed. Executive Headteacher, Harmeet Sahota says:
“The GEC Platform has had a
huge impact in helping us
change the culture of our schools,
resulting in increased student numbers.”
Across the Global Equality Collective network, trusts and LAs are using this approach to build confident, evidence-led inclusion strategies that strengthen culture, community and opportunity for every learner.
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