Chesterfield College had led a national conference on how to promote equality through the learner voice.

The event, organised with the help of LSIS, Doncaster GTA and Pinnacle Training Solutions, was a chance for professionals to learn and share equality best practice.

Steve Kelly, director of learner experience at Chesterfield College said: “Promoting equality is featured strongly in the proposed 2012 Common Inspection Framework and we’ve worked hard to try different ways in approaching this within college.

“We’re keen to share our findings and best practice with other education organisations across the UK and this is the ideal platform to do so.

“For example, we’ve found that our ‘Respect Cafes’ which encourage learners to discuss what respect means to them have worked really well and other colleges can take away lesson plans for activities such as this to have a go themselves.”

Each organisation brought two learners to the conference in order to see how they would react to different equality techniques.

Alex Baghurst of Pinnacle Training Solutions Limited said: “The aim of the FE Providers’ Equality Network is to work together and advance the inclusion agenda.

“Events like today show the enthusiasm there is in the sector, and that collectively we can pool resources and share practice that will improve the student experience.”