Abstract

Shaun Dellenty, a nationally celebrated LGBT inclusion in education advocate and educator who was honoured in 2016 by the U.K. Prime Minister for services to LGBT and education communities has written a ground-breaking book Celebrating Difference- A Whole School Approach to LGBT + Inclusion aimed at empowering school leaders, school governors and teachers to facilitate lasting organisational change within their schools in respect of positive LGBT inclusion.

Celebrating Difference is published by Bloomsbury Education in May 2019 and coincides with Shaun’s tenth year of work in the field of LGBT inclusion in education, where he is recognised as breaking new ground, particularly in the primary and faith school sectors.

In 2009 whilst working as a primary school leader and in response to homophobic bullying in his own school he ‘came out’ to his whole school community Shaun was widely reported in the press as being one of the first fully ‘out’ LGBT primary school leaders in the country, inspiring other teaching staff to come out as LGBT . Shaun devised a pioneering LGBT inclusion training and awareness strategy ‘Inclusion For All’ for staff in primary, secondary and faith schools. Shaun’s adopted a multi-layered approach; bringing awareness of LGBT identities across a variety of media, including social media, blogging, news and television.