With Pride: Top five tips for creating an inclusive school
By Premier League Primary Stars · Fri 04 December 2020
Top tips to help you create a school where everyone feels they can be themselves.
By Premier League Primary Stars · Fri 04 December 2020
Top tips to help you create a school where everyone feels they can be themselves.
The Premier League is committed to making sport everyone’s game, and diversity and equality remain central themes within Premier League Primary Stars.
To support the Premier League’s With Pride campaign, new for 2026, here are some top tips to help you create a school where everyone feels welcome and valued:
1. Challenge gender stereotypes
Gender stereotypes can lead children to assume that certain activities or careers aren’t meant for them, make them afraid to express themselves fully, and prevent them from reaching their full potential as they grow up.
When children grow up learning that there’s no such thing as a ‘typical boy’ or a ‘typical girl’, they can grow up feeling good about themselves and go on to reach their full potential.
Our With Pride resources encourage pupils to think about where stereotypes could be challenged and how they can help make positive changes.
Take a look at our Stand in Someone Else’s Shoes resource!
2. Make sport everyone’s game
For a lot of people, sport and sporting environments are ‘safe spaces’, somewhere they feel comfortable and at ease. But others might feel unwelcome in the same place. Coming together to make sport everyone’s game has never been more important, and allies have a crucial role to play. Allies educate themselves and people around them and use their voices and privilege to speak out. Remind pupils of the value of team spirit and looking out for one another.
https://plprimarystars.com/inclusion-has-no-off-season
3. Language matters
If language focuses on someone’s identity in a negative way, it’s hurtful and abusive. Slurs cause harm even if there’s no obvious ‘target’: they reinforce stereotypes, build barriers to understanding and stop places being welcoming. All school staff should be trained to tackle all forms of bullying and any inappropriate comments or ‘jokes’ which may be hurtful.
See our teacher webinar on Embedding LGBTQ+ allyship for more guidance on how best to speak about allyship and the LGBTQ+ community.
4. Make everyone visible
Talking to young people about different types of families will make a difference to the school environment and enable every child to see themselves and their experiences represented, whatever kind of family set-up they live in and friends they have. Ensure the school library contains fiction featuring different types of families and display diverse images of people and families.
5. Celebrate!
It’s important to recognise and celebrate everyone’s similarities and differences. We are all unique. Let everyone know you’re inclusive With Pride, hang pride flags and, celebrate different identities and different types of families. Make the clear, visible statement that you welcome everyone.
Explore our specially created resources and activities to bring these values to life in your classroom in collaboration with the Premier League’s With Pride campaign.
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