It’s something that has happened to every teacher. You receive a list of the students you will be teaching for the coming year and there, in the middle, is a name you have never come across before.
The issue of name pronunciation is a big one. That’s what we found out when we commissioned a Flair impact survey in October 2020, in a bid to better understand perceptions of racial equity at our college.
At the time, we felt that we were already getting a lot of things right. Our school has always been dedicated to fostering a welcoming and inclusive environment. We recognise the value of diversity and are committed to ensuring that everyone is treated fairly and with respect.
However, a key theme that emerged from discussions with pupils about the results of our impact survey was the issue of name mispronunciation. Some students reported feeling undervalued, insecure and even inferior when their names were persistently mispronounced.
To address this, we formed a working group of teachers and support staff to implement a system to tackle the problem. From this, our Every Name Matters initiative was born.
The group compiled a list of student names and their phonetic spellings, which were then uploaded to the pupil register module in our school’s management information system. Nearly 300 names (from a total school enrolment of just over 1,000) were entered.
In addition to the phonetic spellings, we asked each of the 300 students to speak their own name into a voice recorder. The audio files are exclusive to staff and are available on the staff intranet homepage for easy access.
The next step was to raise awareness about this new resource.
We officially launched the initiative in January 2022, communicating this to students through presentations in form time and through videos shared online.
We regularly revisit the initiative during CPD sessions and staff meetings. It has also been incorporated into our new-starter onboarding process and the school’s teaching insight programme, which is a scheme we run to recruit new staff from historically under-represented backgrounds. In this way, we can ensure that everyone - including new staff members - is aware of the project, culture and ethos before they even arrive here.
So, what has the impact been so far?
The programme has been successful, with students reporting a reduced frequency of needing to correct staff. Staff members have also reported the initiative has helped them to get to know their students better, improved relations and communication with families, and reduced anxiety around being unsure about a pronunciation. Parental feedback has also been very positive.
In addition, the initiative has demonstrated that name mispronunciation is not solely a challenge for individuals from ethnic-minority backgrounds. For instance, those with traditional Irish, Welsh or Scottish names can face the same issues: names like Aoife, Iseult or Bleddyn, for example.
Every Name Matters has also made our admissions process more inclusive: new students and their parents can provide phonetic spellings, and recordings are taken at the earliest opportunity, thereby helping to ensure that names are pronounced correctly from first interactions.
Once you know someone’s name, you are no longer strangers. People warm to surroundings where they feel known and understood, and the name is the first opportunity to imbue a sense of belonging.
It has made a real difference to students’ self-esteem and to staff-student and staff-parent interactions and I think its success is probably best summarised by the author Dale Carnegie, who wrote in How to Win Friends and Influence People: “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”
Gideon Hammond is a teacher of maths and physics, and the lead on race, ethnicity and cultural heritage at Eltham College in south-east London. He tweets @MrGideonHammond.
