Anti-racism in schools – How we embedded an approach across a Trust
What’s the difference between non-racist and anti-racist schools? It’s all about proactivity, but the process takes time…
- by Paul Glover
It is safe to say that most organisations, schools and Trusts claim to embrace diversity and have no tolerance for racism. STEP Academy Trust was no different. As a Trust, we prided ourselves on being open and inclusive. We wanted to improve the life chances of all our pupils, fully in support of anti-racism in schools.
STEP is fortunate to work across several local authorities in two geographical areas. We have always worked closely with and supported the communities we serve.
However, following the tragic events in America with the killing of George Floyd in 2020, we were forced to take a longer look in the mirror.
Was it enough for our Trust to simply not be part of the problem, if we weren’t actively contributing to the solution?
This is the core difference between a non-racist and an anti-racist organisation. As a non-racist Trust, our goal was not to perpetuate racism.
We wanted to hold ourselves to a higher standard; actively eliminating racism
But now we wanted to hold ourselves to a higher standard; actively eliminating racism and demonstrating to future and current colleagues and our communities what we stood for.
The reason is simple. Taking a position of anti-racism in schools is the best way to improve the life chances of the children, staff, and diverse communities that we serve.
Pupils both need and deserve role models who genuinely reflect the diverse world we live in.
Our job as leaders is to ask why this is not always the case within the sector. We need to take action, and challenge our systems, recruitment and development across the education sector.
Anti-racism education
Implementing this kind of culture change across a Multi-Academy Trust requires a strategic approach.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution that we can print out and pin up in the corridors. Every school is shaped by its community, so its anti-racism strategy must respond to that community’s unique culture, beliefs and needs.
As part of a Trust-wide anti-racism roadmap, STEP felt it important to have external experts challenge us and give their opinion.
As a result, we engaged an external training provider, Fig Tree International. They reviewed, challenged and thereby improved each academy’s policies and practices within their individual settings.
These are assessed against an extensive framework that enables schools to identify areas for improvement. We could also develop a unique action plan, independently accredited by Fig Tree International, setting out clear steps towards anti-racism.
Anti-racism training
One of the biggest issues to overcome in this process was a lack of staff confidence. This was particularly true for individuals challenging something that doesn’t feel right.
To address this, STEP developed internal and external training for staff and leaders. Modelling scenarios with different layers of racism at play greatly enhanced the learning. It helped staff turn theory into practice and consider how racism manifests in their own schools.
As part of this, academies and the central team appointed ‘local champions’ to guide the action plan. Another key benefit to this training was to establish a shared language for discussing racism and discrimination.
Ongoing CPD and support for staff has given them the confidence they need to reflect and discuss anti-racism confidently.
Building community understanding and engagement with the Trust’s anti-racism policy was another challenge.
This is a long-term endeavour, even more so than building understanding within the school. This is because it depends more heavily on their willingness to engage. School leaders focused on communicating with parents through formal workshops and informal conversations, along with regular newsletters reporting back on the school’s progress.
This, combined with the eager reports of pupils sharing the day’s learnings at home, has built a wider understanding of the Trust’s anti-racism policy and why we’re pursuing it.
Barriers to anti-racism in schools
Time itself felt like the biggest barrier of all. But we needed to give everyone time to understand the direction, take part in training and to hold up that mirror to our own behaviours and actions.
As with any key priority for our Trust, it is essential that staff have adequate time, training and support.
Our work in this area should never be seen as a quick fix but an ongoing process; empowering brave members of our own staff to share stories of experiencing racism, along with hearing from guest speakers who helped the school community understand the need for change, has been central to this.
How we review progress
Every successful strategy requires clear measures of success. When it comes to culture change, progress can feel nebulous at best.
External accreditation and review is extremely helpful in this regard, providing an independent assessment with great expertise.
However, STEP has also introduced a range of internal measures to help leaders monitor and improve progress.
First, each academy’s anti-racism objectives are built into its yearly plan for ongoing review and impact monitoring. Schools also review progress at every executive team meeting.
Every successful strategy requires clear measures of success
Second, ongoing informal training is offered to all staff. Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) training for leaders and trustees will focus on reviewing perceptions and help to shape further directions and actions across each academy.
Annual pupil surveys at each academy now also include key questions around pupils’ understanding of anti-racism. They also include questions on how they perceive the importance of anti-racism in their school. This allows us to gauge the impact of policies and attitude changes over time.
But there’s nothing quite like simply talking to our pupils and our community. Leaders engage pupils in conversations about their understanding of anti-racism and its place in the curriculum.
Many of STEP’s academies have specific curriculums built as part of their PSHCE courses to delve deeper into the issues.
This also presents valuable opportunities for pupils to share their views and build their understanding through Philosophy for Children lessons.
Whilst we have made much progress though our roadmap, action plans and training, there is still a lot to do. It is tempting to chase ‘quick wins’ with any policy, but this is ultimately not our goal.
What we’re doing now is, rather, the beginning a long-term re-establishing of culture and priorities, which must permeate our entire organisation.
Embedding anti-racism in schools
The individual anti-racism action plans developed by academies within STEP Academy Trust are tailored to their unique needs.
However, we also adopted Trust-wide policies to foster understanding and appreciation for diversity among staff and pupils alike.
These include policy and recruitment changes aimed at building a leadership that reflects the diversity of our communities.
- Each part of the organisation has a Race Champion, leading training, thinking, support and reading in each setting – whilst helping to shape the Trust-wide plans each year through the Trust’s Anti-Racism Network meetings.
- We’ve developed a leadership behaviours framework to create a positive culture, led from the top.
- We have updated school meal menus to reflect the diversity and cultures of cuisine within each of our academies and Trust.
- We have amended all policies to reflect diversity statements and practices.
- Schools have reviewed and updated recruitment processes, including the introduction of blind recruitment, where the shortlister removes all names and protected characteristics.
- We’ve amended career pathways to increase transparency and include a rich variety of ongoing training and development opportunities.
- We have an ongoing process of de-colonisation of the curriculum, alongside a full review of texts used within reading, to introduce a broader range of voices and influences.
These policies lay the groundwork for change.
Planned future activities include specific targeted training and development for our future leaders, reviewing how well our websites and communications reflect our stance, and developing a non-negotiable resource bank that all pupils should have access to.
Paul Glover is CEO at STEP Academy Trust. Follow the Trust on Twitter @thesteptrust
