Equity Education Services was founded by Nicole Taylor, a School Improvement Lead, experienced science leader, and strategic careers leader with over two decades working in and across Cornwall’s schools.

Over the last four years, working within a multi-academy trust, I’ve supported schools across their improvement journeys. That work increasingly led me to focus on the outcomes of disadvantaged students — and it was that focus which drove the development of an equity strategy, and ultimately the framework that sits at the heart of this practice.

The equity charter and self-evaluation framework at the heart of this work weren’t developed in a think-tank — they were built through real conversations with real schools, shaped by the specific challenges facing children and families across Cornwall and the South West.

This isn’t about compliance or box-ticking. It’s about helping schools understand where they genuinely are, and working alongside them to get to where they want to be.

Cornwall presents particular challenges: geographic isolation, limited economic mobility, and schools that are often working with fewer resources than their urban counterparts. The framework recognises this. It doesn’t import solutions designed for somewhere else — it was built here, for here.