Renewing Our Yellow Flag

Mura gcuirfidh tú san earrach ní bhainfidh tú san fhómhar – If you do not sow in the spring, you will not reap in the autumn (Irish Proverb)

Schools need to renew their Yellow Flag every three years – this shows us and everyone else that you are still working as an intercultural school.

How do we keep the Yellow Flag spirit alive?

Keep going back to those 8 Steps. Do new teachers, students and parents know about the programme? Is it still a living programme in your school? Have your reviewed the things you did for the Yellow Flag, like the Action Plan and the Intercultural Review? Does everyone still have a sense of the Yellow Flag Programme in your school. The table overleaf sets our key questions for schools to think about and respond to. If schools can do this, they renew their Yellow Flag.

What happens for a renewal?

Like the first-time round, you should keep records of the work you do. You can do this by setting up a new folder, like this one, showing your work under each step.

If your school has kept the spirit of the flag alive, the renewal process should be quite straight-forward. To successfully renew the flag, a school needs to complete just four of the eight steps from the original framework:

1. Re-energise the Diversity Committee
   If the committee is no longer in place, recruit new members, and redefine the working structure and goals for the group. To ensure that your school is up-to-date on local issues and dynamics, we really encourage you to involve a local community representative on the committee. This could be a representative from a local Traveller or migrant project, or even a community worker from your local authority.
2. Complete the Intercultural Awareness CPD
   Anti-racism is a continuous learning journey. For that reason, and because of inevitable staff changeover, we ask renewal schools to complete the Yellow Flag Intercultural Awareness CPD. This is an opportunity to refresh the staff team on key concepts around racism and discrimination, and to remind teachers of the practical skills that foster inclusion in the classroom.
3. Update the Action Plan
   Priorities and challenges are likely to have changed since your last iteration of the programme, and if the actions intially implemented were successful, this is a great chance to look at new areas for improvement. You don’t need to scrap your old plan entirely – it can be used as a blueprint for developing an updated version, and some actions may even be carried forward.
4. Diversity Code and Policy Review
   Conduct a review of existing policies to ensure that they continue to address any challenges faced in school life, and verify that the language and content is still relevant. An anti-racism policy should be a living document, implemented as part of the ethos of the school, and accessible to all parents/guardians, teachers and students.

You will also have a renewal visit by the Yellow Flag Review team – this will follow the same lines as the original review. There will be two members on the review team, and the visit will last for around 1.5 hours. Once again, the renewal visit will be a chance for you to showcase your good work in relation to interculturalism, commitment to equality and addressing racism and discrimination.

When will we know if we get to keep our Flag?

Like the last time, the assessors will evaluate the school separately, and then come together to agree on a decision. A letter will be sent to the school letting you know if you have renewed your Yellow Flag or whether you have more work to do to secure a renewal.

Support for renewals?

Just like the first-time round, the Yellow Flag staff will visit your school, and be available to talk to by email or phone to help guide you in your work.

Find out more

• The 4 Steps to Renew your flag
• School Renewal Assessment Form