Breaking the Mould: promoting inclusion in schools

The ‘Breaking the Mould’ project, carried out by the UK National Education Union, aimed to address stereotypes through literacy and reading. It worked with five primary schools to consider how ‘traditional’ gender stereotypes could be challenged in the classroom. Challenging these stereotypes is likely to have widely beneficial effects in terms of improving educational and life outcomes for both sexes.

From this project, five booklets were created that help teachers understand and address the impact of gender stereotypes, promote LGBT+ and disabilities inclusion in school, and break down beliefs about choices and behaviours based on gender.

The resources explore classroom strategies to challenge stereotypes, and show how reading can be used to provide counternarratives and alternative perspectives to make more children feel included and be more inclusive of others.