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Anti-Racist Action Report
Having already begun our efforts to establish anti-racist practices and decolonise our curriculum at school, returning to the academy before the summer holidays in 2020, following the latest Black Lives Matter mobilisation, presented a fairly overwhelming task. We knew we weren’t doing enough. We had some ideas for what we wanted to improve. But largely,…
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Student led anti-discrimination work
In December 2019 I reached out to Lavinya Stennett at The Black Curriculum to discuss the potential for her organisation to come in to my school. After exchanging e-mails, seeing the fantastic subject specific lessons they had on offer, and a couple of chats on the phone, we planned for their first visit up north…
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Engaging parents in anti-discrimination work
At my school, we conducted an anti-racist survey with our parents/carers in December 2021. With the help of our EAL department and multi-lingual students/teachers, we were able to translate our survey in to most home languages spoken by our families to encourage as much engagement as possible. The responses were largely positive but there were…
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Teaching ‘Black Panther’ during BHM
When Black Panther was released in February 2018, I took a group of students on a trip after school to watch it at the local cinema. As it was an early showing, the cinema was empty, so it was like we had a private screening, which the students loved. Before covid, I used to organise…
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Signposting diversified curriculums for students
At my school, we put lots of work in to, initially, decolonising our curriculum, and then further diversifying to increase representation for all protected categories, but would still hear students say “and we only learn about slavery!”. This obviously isn’t the students’ fault. They aren’t necessarily going to remember off the top of the heads…
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Celebrating BHM in schools
When Black History Month is done well, it can have a hugely positive impact on Black students in school, as well as non-Black students who otherwise may not have access to knowledge about the inspirational and successful Black people you can teach about during the month. For example, students learning about the Kingdom of Benin,…