Time for Inclusive Education and Just Like Us announce new partnership

Time for Inclusive Education (TIE) and Just Like Us have announced a new partnership to bring LGBT+ inclusion to more schools across Scotland and England. 

Just Like Us, the LGBT+ young people’s charity, has announced a new partnership with Time for Inclusive Education (TIE), Scotland’s LGBT Inclusive Education charity to help make schools more LGBT+ inclusive.

The two charities will work together, combining their resources and expertise, to reach more schools than ever before. Together, they plan to ensure that all schools across England and Scotland have access to high-quality LGBT+ inclusive resources including lesson plans, activities and visits from Just Like Us’ local LGBT+ ambassadors to talk about the importance of LGBT+ allyship.

As Scotland’s major LGBT Inclusive Education charity, TIE works with schools across the country to embed LGBT+ themes such as history, rights, and equalities into everyday teaching and learning. This approach became a national expectation for schools across Scotland in September 2021, following TIE’s successful campaign, and the charity provides a range of different services for schools – including resources, workshops, and teacher training – designed to address the prejudice that LGBT+ young people often experience. 

Just Like Us has a similar approach, providing schools across the UK with curricular resources in each key stage and subject as part of School Diversity Week.

As part of the partnership, Just Like Us and TIE will be collaborating on a number of projects including training Just Like Us ambassadors in Glasgow and Edinburgh, encouraging schools involved in School Diversity Week in Scotland to use the national resources provided by TIE in order to include LGBT+ themes in their curriculum.

Chief Executive Dominic Arnall said: “When we saw the quality and range of the work delivered by Time for Inclusive Education, we were incredibly impressed. Our vision and purpose is aligned, as is our approach to LGBT+ inclusive education. We are delighted to recommend TIE to schools from Scotland in our network and are looking forward to collaborating on a range of projects. It is essential that every young person knows that being LGBT+ is something to be celebrated. We hope this project will be the next step in achieving this for young people across Scotland and England.”

Jordan Daly co-founder and Director of Time for Inclusive Education said: “We are excited to be moving forward in our partnership with Just Like Us, working together to maximise our reach in order to address the prejudice and bullying that many LGBT+ young people and those with LGBT+ family members can still experience at school. In particular, we are alert to the changing nature of homophobia, biphobia and transphobia in our schools due to the rise of technology, particularly with some social media influencers sharing age-old prejudice in a new way with young people, and we look forward to combining our expertise and experience to support schools with resources to tackle this.”

Both charities will remain independent organisations and are not merging. The partnership refers to a collaborative partnership on the development and provision of new resources and services for schools.