A roundtable discussion with Mission 44 Founder, Sir Lewis Hamilton. 

On Friday, 15 May 2026, I was invited by Mission 44 to join a special roundtable discussion alongside other education partners and young people at Oasis Academy South Bank, winner of the TES 2025 Secondary School of the Year award. I have previously attended events on behalf of our project partners, but what made this occasion even more special was that it was chaired by Mission 44 CEO Jason Arthur and attended by Mission 44 founder Sir Lewis Hamilton! 

As the roundtable discussion began, Jason Arthur explained that the purpose of the roundtable was to bring together education partners and some of the young people supported by Mission 44  to discuss progress made since our roundtable with the Prime Minister almost a year earlier, in 2025. It provided an opportunity to engage with young people and partners to explore issues of inclusion within education, consider the progress made, identify what more needs to be done and capture insights to support advocacy messaging on inclusive education. Jason also explained that the conversation would focus on Mission 44’s 3Ps framework: priorities, people and practice. 

The young people were then invited to share their lived experiences,  highlighting a key issue that we know persists across the sector: youth voice and pupil experience data are not consistently embedded within decision-making processes, and accountability for inclusion and belonging needs strengthening across the system. As a former deputy headteacher and English teacher, I found it deeply moving to listen to the stories shared by the young people and the other education partners around the table; the young people beautifully described the impact of their trusted adults represented by Mission 44-funded partners, including CAPE mentors, Coram, Milk Honey Bees and the Oasis 360 Programme. What was particularly powerful was hearing how the foundation’s work had positively impacted not only the young people themselves, but also the trusted adults and organisations too. They all agreed that the funding had empowered them to succeed both within and beyond the education system. 

As Project Lead for the Increasing Diversity in ITT project on behalf of Being Luminary, the Chartered College of Teaching and Chiltern Learning Trust, I also had the opportunity to share more about how Mission 44’s funding has been instrumental in the development of our consortium’s work. 

As I shared with Sir Lewis Hamilton and the other education partners at the roundtable, Mission 44’s Diversity in Education Fund is enabling us to achieve our goal of increasing the proportion of global majority teachers entering the profession, starting with trainee teachers in Initial Teacher Training (ITT).  By having a diverse workforce, young people from global majority backgrounds will see themselves represented within the classroom and leadership spaces. This representation is not tokenistic; it is central to ensuring every student has a trusted adult who understands their heritage, identities and values.

I also highlighted how School-Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITT) providers involved in our coaching programme, supported by our diversity and inclusion expert coaches — all Fellows of the Chartered College of Teaching —  have moved beyond conversations towards actively developing inclusive and anti-racist systems for recruiting and retaining global majority trainee teachers across their organisations. Mission 44’s platform, alongside the national visibility, amplification and advocacy it has provided, has enhanced our approach. You can learn more about the impact of the coaching programme by reading blogs from Polly Butterfield-Tracey and Harroop Sandhu.  

Alongside our coaching programme, which currently works with 20 national SCITTs, I was also delighted to share the exciting news that the Increasing Diversity in ITT Racial Literacy online course, funded by Mission 44, had received positive feedback from sector experts and SCITT leaders and would launch publicly on Monday, 1 June 2026. Find out more here.

While highlighting the strengths of the project, I felt it was also important to acknowledge some of the barriers we faced during the project, particularly within our own organisations, as we navigated challenges around our anti-racist practice. I reiterated the notion that systemic racism is pervasive across the teaching profession, something we witnessed during our recruitment of leaders for the Chartered Teacher (Leadership) Pathway. During the conversation, I expressed concerns that some applicants were deliberately prevented from applying by their executive leaders and told they were ‘not ready’. In response, for cohort 2 of the Chartered Teacher Pathway, we adapted our communication strategy to address headteachers and CEOs directly, encouraging them to advocate for colleagues within their organisations. This led to a significant rise in the number of applications from global majority teachers and middle leaders.

What I hope emerged from the conversation was that, while we have made important progress in increasing diversity in the teacher workforce and advancing inclusion for all young people, there is still work to be done.

This work is being driven by Mission 44’s commitment to inclusion as part of the Nothing Happens in Isolation campaign, which our consortium is proud to be part of and which I was privileged to share with Sir Lewis Hamilton and other guests.

Our project work is helping to shift sector conversations away from ‘why diversity matters’ to ‘how we create systems in which diverse educators can thrive, lead and feel a sense of belonging, so that our young people have strong role models’.

Thank you to Sir Lewis Hamilton, Jason Arthur, Leicia, Laurie and Beatrice from Mission 44, Oasis Academy South Bank and, of course, all the young people and education partners for an unforgettable day.