2024-25 Outcomes Report highlights a landmark year of impact

This reporting period has been a defining year for our charity – one of significant growth and innovation, while continuing to deliver meaningful impact for learners and educators across Scotland.

During the period, we engaged with 533 schools across Scotland, delivering free educational services to address prejudice and bullying.

Through learner workshops, professional learning for teachers, initial teacher education inputs, and parent and carer engagement sessions, we worked with thousands of learners and educators – helping to ensure that LGBT Inclusive Education remains a sustainable part of Scottish education.

A central element of this work is our nationally recognised two-stage professional learning course, Delivering LGBT Inclusive Education, delivered on behalf of the Scottish Government.

During this period, the course received formal endorsement from Education Scotland following a rigorous quality assurance process – an important milestone confirming its quality and alignment with professional teaching standards.

Feedback from participating teachers continues to demonstrate the course’s effectiveness: increasing staff knowledge and understanding of anti-prejudice pedagogy, and equipping educators with the tools to develop a meaningfully representative curriculum that addresses stereotypes, stigma, and prejudice at their root.

Our direct work with learners continues to show strong outcomes.

Evaluation data from both primary and secondary pupils highlight improved understanding of prejudice, reduced use of pejorative language, and increased confidence to disclose and respond to bullying behaviour. Learners’ voices consistently reaffirm the importance of this work, particularly for those who experience prejudice directly.

We also launched a suite of new resources. This includes an original illustrated book for primary schools exploring the life and contributions of Ann Mei-Chang to the STEM sector. Written by Ashleigh Chan and illustrated by Abby Rogers, the resource was developed in collaboration with students from the University of Strathclyde’s BA Primary Education programme and is accompanied by a lesson on Chang’s impact on computing and coding.

For secondary schools, a particular highlight was a multi-lesson Drama unit on verbatim theatre, using Tectonic Theater’s ‘The Laramie Project’ to explore the origins and development of the form, while supporting learning about the impact of prejudice and homophobia.

In response to an increasingly complex and polarised context, we delivered our most ambitious project to date. In partnership with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) in Germany, we developed the Digital Discourse Initiative – an innovative programme equipping schools with tools to counter online hate and disinformation, while strengthening children and young people’s critical literacy skills.

The programme was launched with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills at a school visit and is supported by a comprehensive professional learning module. This provides practical tools and resources, including fact-checking approaches, teaching materials on prejudicial conspiracy narratives and disinformation, and methods to support learners with critical information evaluation.

For over 20 years, ISD has led international efforts to detect, analyse, and counter extremism, disinformation, and harmful online ecosystems. This collaboration represents a significant international partnership for our charity, strengthening the practical support available to schools.

We delivered a project in collaboration with and part-funded by Screen Scotland, which engaged a group of S5 and S6 learners at Paisley Grammar School to develop their own educational short films on iPads exploring topics of disinformation, online prejudice and hate, and experiences of social media.

This wide-reaching project, which spanned a period of ten months, supported learners to engage with experts in social media, disinformation, critical literacy, and filmmaking during a series of initial skills development workshops.

The young people attended the Sky Arts Academy, where they created news reports based on the subjects they were considering for their films and were able to record and edit these using the Sky Arts Studios. They also spent the day at Apple in Glasgow, where staff provided tutorials on photo and video techniques, creating sound with GarageBand, and editing with iMovie.

At the end of the project, the young people had created two short films – focused on homophobic bullying and online misogyny – which were premiered in Paisley Arts Centre for friends, family and their teachers.

We also continued to strengthen partnerships both nationally and internationally. During this period, Scotland’s approach to LGBT Inclusive Education – including the role of specialist organisations such as ours – was commended as good practice by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance.

We remain proud to be a Living Wage Accredited and period-positive employer, and to maintain a trade union recognition agreement with Unite the Union.

The announcement of award-winning comedian, Susie McCabe, as our first charity patron was a particular highlight from this reporting period.

2024-25 has been a landmark year. Work focused on anti-prejudice education and critical media literacy is increasingly essential to safeguarding democratic values and enabling educators to respond confidently to the challenges they face.

Click here to read the full report

Thank you for your continued support. We extend our sincere thanks to all donors and those who fundraise for our work.