Shaun Dellenty (born 1968) is a London based educator, actor, presenter, writer and multi-award-winning advocate for LGBT+ inclusion in education and communities. After leaving state education early in 1987, Shaun worked first as a civil servant and then as a professional actor, presenter and voice-over artist, appearing in various television programmes such as ‘Peak Practice’, ‘Crimewatch’ and ‘Emmerdale’. He was also the resident emcee at Coombe Abbey in Coventry for a number of years. In 1996 Shaun qualified as a primary school teacher and in 2012 qualified as a Headteacher, gaining his NPQH school leader qualification from the National College.

A survivor of sustained homophobic bullying as a child (which resulted in him walking out of state education and nearly taking his own life) Shaun remained ‘closeted’ as a teacher until 2009 as a direct result of witnessing homophobia in school staff-rooms, class-rooms and playgrounds. In November 2009 Shaun’s own school discovered through undertaking pupil questionnaires that 75% of pupils within the school and locality were being subjected to daily homophobic language or abuse, or were hearing the word ‘gay’ being used as a pejorative term on a daily basis. Using the bullying data as a trigger Shaun then ‘came out’ to his whole school community and founded Inclusion For All, a small not-for-profit charitable organisation aiming to train teachers and effect organisational change in communities, schools, faith schools and other educational contexts. Shaun began telling his personal story of surviving bullying in school assemblies and lecture halls across the United Kingdom.

Such was the rapid impact of the Inclusion For All programme on levels of LGBT+ bullying in schools that Stonewall, the Department For Education and the national press showed great interest in Shaun’s life, journey and work as he broke new ground by empowering primary schools and early years settings to take a more pro-active stance to positive LGBT+ inclusion.

Shaun has since gone on to support or speak at an extensive range of primary and secondary schools, teacher training establishments, faith schools, local authorities, hate-crime, police and anti-bullying organisations including; Amnesty UK, Stonewall, National College of Teaching and Leadership, NSPCC, Kidscape, Open University, Liverpool Hope and John Moores Universities, London South Bank, Teach First, The Open University, The Institute of Education, Universities of Hull, Brighton, Bedfordshire, Greenwich, Derby and Nottingham, House of Commons Committees and many, many more. Shaun has personally trained over 25,000 education professionals since 2009.

In addition to leading school based training sessions Shaun has also delivered webinars, appeared on national radio and television, and spoken at many high profile hate crime and anti-bullying conferences, IDAHOBIT events, LGBT Pride events and at LGBT history month events in the UK and abroad. In 2014 alone Shaun had invitations to speak to audiences in Ireland, Scotland, Italy, Hungary and Armenia; he has also delivered several TEDx talks. In 2012 Shaun worked with EV Crowe and the cast and production team of the play ‘Hero’ at the Royal Court Theatre, which was in part inspired by observations undertaken by the ‘Hero’ cast and production team of Shaun working with pupils in school.

Shaun’s work has been the feature of many articles in the national press, including Times Educational Supplement, Leadership Focus, LDR Magazine, Teach Primary, Huffington Post, The Guardian, London Evening Standard, The Mirror, The Telegraph and many more. A prolific writer and blogger, Dellenty has written articles for Teach Primary magazine, The Guardian, Gay Star News, Gay Times, LDR magazine and others.

In 2013 and 2014 Shaun was invited to help judge the Amnesty International Young Journalist of the Year Award. In June 2013 and 2014 he returned to his old secondary school in Leicestershire to speak about growing up gay, being bullied and his IFA work, writing about his experience in an article for The Guardian which went viral. In Autumn 2014 Shaun’s IFA work was broadcast nationally as part of the CBBC series ‘Our School’.

In May 2014 Shaun’s work was recommended by the Church of England in their ‘Valuing All God’s Children’ anti-homophobia resource; he led a student workshop alongside secondary school pupils and the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby at Trinity School Lewisham, leading headteacher Father Richard Peers to name him as ‘the best speaker on homophobic bullying I have heard’. Shaun was nominated a ‘Pride Hero’ by members of the public for Pride In London 2015 and he was featured in a high-profile multi-media campaign across London Transport. In 2015 Shaun spoke at the London Festival of Education; he is writing his first book ‘That Gay Teacher’ about his journey and IFA work. Shaun appears in the forthcoming film ‘After 82’ to discuss the arrival of HIV/AIDS in the UK.

In 2015 Shaun was invited to advise on policy at the House of Commons and Lords and he has also spoken at Inside Government events. In 2016 he advised on policy at the LGBT Lib Dems conference. In 2016 Shaun launched an anti-homophobia schools and theatre tour ‘BOY’ in collaboration with Essex-based HyperFusion Theatre Company and undertook various media promotions. In 2016 in a ground breaking move Shaun took his messages of positive LGBT+ inclusion to the Isle of Man, speaking at the first International Isle Of Man Diversity Conference on LGBT+ inclusion and equal marriage, on the same day the same sex marriage bill passed the first stage in the Manx Government. Shaun was then invited to lead ground-breaking LGBT+ inclusion work with Isle of Man schools by the Isle of Man Education Department.

In July 2016 Shaun married his long-term partner in the Houses of Parliament. In November 2016 anti-homophobia play ‘BOY’ undertook an extensive tour of schools and community spaces with funding from the NHS and Southwark Council. To coincide with Anti-Bullying Week and UK Parliament Week 2016 the play was performed within the Houses of Parliament. In January 2017 it was confirmed by the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement that they had included Shaun within their ‘Rainbow List’ of LGBT Christians and allies who were working to promote greater understanding between faith and LGBT communities. In February 2017 Shaun was nominated for the ‘Inclusive Networks Awesome 100’ of inspiring people working to achieve social and professional representation for LGBT+ people in the UK. For LGBT History Month 2017 The Open University produced a free online resource on preventing homophobic language based upon a lecture Shaun had delivered in a previous year.

In 2018 Shaun began a pioneering three to five-year long-term strategy of work supporting the entire Isle of Man education authority to become more positively LGBT+ inclusive. Shaun also began working with NASUWT teachers in Northern Ireland. In May Shaun was invited to join the Advisory Board of the Centre for LGBTQ Inclusion In Education at Leeds Beckett University. For LGBT History Month and IDAHOBIT Shaun delivered a number of free public lectures and talks in schools, including faith schools and the University of Greenwich in in February he gave a headline talk at Amnesty UK. Shaun continued to support larger funded organisations in developing their own approach to LGBT+ inclusion including Votes For Schools. Evidence of Shaun’s increasing global influence came via online global webinars and lectures and an invitation to speak to teachers from around the world in Autumn 2018 at Derby University and in Cologne. Shaun was nominated ‘Positive LGBT Role Model’ at the National Diversity Awards 2018. Shaun’s first book for Bloomsbury Education ‘Celebrating Difference- A Whole School Approach to LGBT Inclusion’ is due to be published in March 2019, marking Shaun’s tenth year of work in the field

Major Awards

• In May 2016 Shaun was honoured with ‘Points of Light’ status by Prime Minister David Cameron at 10 Downing Street
• In 2012 and 2013 Dellenty was nominated onto the Independent on Sunday ‘Pink List’ of the 101 most influential LGBT people in the UK
• In May 2016 Shaun won the ‘Education Champion Award’ at the Excellence In Diversity Awards
• In May 2016 Shaun was honoured by the Mayor of Southwark at Southwark Cathedral with her Highest Civic Honour