My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 118A in my name. Before I make any substantive remarks, I say on the record that, on perhaps the hottest day ever recorded in this country, this Chamber is cooler than the Central line; I was on it this morning. I never thought I could put the House of Lords and being cool in the same sentence. I want to thank a few people who have helped me put these remarks together: L’Myah Sherae, Alfiaz Vaiya and Simon Dixon in Stella Creasy’s office.
Only through a freedom of information request by the Guardian newspaper do we know that UK schools recorded more than 60,000 racist incidents in the last five years. Many people, including black community and education leaders, accuse the Government of failing to meet basic safeguarding measures by hiding the true scale of the problem. For example, the data from the Guardian excluded 80% of England’s multi-academy trusts. The scale of racial incidents in schools is therefore probably much worse, causing one academic working in this area, Professor David Gillborn from the University of Birmingham, to conclude that we have a racism epidemic in our schools.
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What does racial discrimination look like in our schools? It might be plain old racial abuse or, worse still, racial bullying. The overwhelming majority of this would be student to student. But there are other types too that can easily be characterised as institutional. Take what occurred to Child Q in east London, for example, whom I am led to believe was taken out of her exam by teachers to be handed over to the police and strip-searched, including the removal of a sanitary towel, while they looked for drugs. What type of empathetic educational culture allows that to occur? Imagine for a second a school culture that would allow your daughter, your granddaughter, your niece or your friend to be treated in such a way.
Yes, this might be an extreme example, but it can happen only in the culture of that environment. There are many other examples too. A parent came to me and said that her son was distressed after being at school and the dinner lady saying to him when he was being animated, playing with his friends, “Why are
you behaving like animals? Why can’t you behave like those?”, “those” being a group of white children. The parent went to the school to meet the headmaster and told them the story. The headmaster said, “It was nothing serious, just a misuse of language. Oh, and by the way, your son was late for school yesterday.” Nothing occurred.
Another example was when a parent came to me and said: “Simon, the headmaster said to my face that my child has the word ‘trouble’ written on the top of his head when he walks into a class. That is what the teachers think of him.” She said that surely that was not fair. How could he be perceived that way when he goes into a new class? The head teacher said that her son had to change so people would think differently of him.
How does this culture play out to black children? We know, because questions have been asked, such as those asked by the YMCA. Some 50% of young black kids asked said that racism, including teacher perception, is the biggest barrier to their educational success. The data somewhat proves them right unless we feel that black children are predisposed to bad behaviour. How do we adequately explain that they are six times more likely to be permanently expelled? Other groups, such as Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children, are nine times more likely to be expelled.
I was struck by what was said by a very talented young author, Jeffrey Boakye, a black English teacher and broadcaster, who argued that some schools are unsafe for students marginalised by race. There is a prevalence of black children who are subject to adultification or demonisation.
My amendment is not a silver bullet but it helps focus people’s attention on—the first rule of thumb—acknowledging that there is a problem and having a plan to deal with it effectively. My amendment would require Ofsted to monitor school compliance with the equality legislation, ensuring that schools which fail to tackle the tens of thousands of instances of racial discrimination are identified and changes are made. I know that the Minister might come back and say that there is scope for equality in Ofsted inspections. Clearly it is not working otherwise we would not have, as one academic said, an “epidemic of racism” in our schools.
This is not just about safeguarding children in our schools, important as that is. Surely this is about giving children an opportunity to flourish; to be the best they can be and have a sense of belonging. This amendment gives us that opportunity and the framework for that to happen.