Deliberate disruption: Issues of gender and diversity

Vivienne Porritt, Strategic Leader, WomenEd; Vice-President, Chartered College of Teaching; Leadership Consultant, UK Lisa Hannay, Strategic Leader, WomenEd; Senior Leader, Centennial High School, Calgary, Alberta, Canada Parm Plummer, Strategic Leader, WomenEd; Senior Leader, Victoria College, St Helier, Jersey   England has a severe teacher retention crisis, with 32.3 per cent of newly qualified entrants to the teaching profession in 2016 not working in the state sector five years later (DfE, 2019). According to Foster, ‘This is the highest five-year wastage rate on the current series, which dates back to 1997.’ (2019, p. 3) Simons (2016) also noted that ‘27% of all leavers in total – are women aged 30–39’ (p. 16). Whilst pupils of minority ethnic backgrounds make up a third of the student population, 85.9 per cent of all state schoolteachers are white British and 92.9 per cent of headteachers are white (DfE, 2020). Ninety-eight per cent of CEOs, the most senior r