Wellington College appoints new EDI Director

Naima Charlier has started the term as Director of Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Social Responsibility at Wellington College in Berkshire.

Her focus is on building on the College's strong sense of community to create a lasting ethos of belonging, representation and inclusion.

Prior to her new role, Naima was Director of Teaching and Learning at Nord Anglia School in Hong Kong, where she spent the last eight years.

Commenting about her role she said: "It’s so important to teach deep empathy so that all pupils feel able to go out into the world and do positive things.

"You can’t flourish if you don’t feel valued and understood for you."

She continued: "I’m incredibly excited to be working somewhere as exciting and innovative as Wellington.

"We develop and deepen our understanding of the world around us and of ourselves, when we interact and collaborate with people who are different to us.

"With students coming from a range of global cultures, Wellington has a great starting point."

Naima is already spearheading new initiatives at the College and has set up a structured student programme with two inclusion ambassadors for each of the 17 school houses.

She said: "Representation matters. I’m looking at who and what we are studying and why.

"Are all pupils seeing themselves represented in the curriculum?

"How global is it and to what extent are we seeing stories that push against stereotypes and preconceived notions of how the world is?"

Naima’s goals for her first year in post are to build on the sense of belonging and community at Wellington by raising awareness of the enormous value of diversity.