Eltham College’s “Every Name Matters” initiative was born out of the results of the Flair impact survey conducted in 2021 to address sentiments of racial equality at the college.  A theme that emerged from discussions with students was issue of name mispronunciation.  Students felt undignified, insecure and even inferior when names pronounced incorrectly.  To address this issue, Mr. Gideon Hammond, the College’s project leader on matters of Race, Ethnicity and Cultural Heritage formed a working group of teachers and support staff to implement a system to tackle this.

The group worked to compile a list of student names and their phonetic spellings, which were then uploaded to a retro-fitted module in the College’s management information system (iSAMS).  A total of 287 names were entered across the Junior and Senior School and they appear when teachers mark the register so that teachers can pronounce each student’s name correctly.

This has significantly encouraged the behavioural change needed to drive its success. In addition to the phonetic spellings, Mr. Hammond also asked each student to speak their own name into a voice recorder.  The audio files are exclusive to staff and are readily available on the staff intranet homepage for easy access and limitless re-listens.