Anti-Racism in Education Programme Board minutes: 1 February 2024

Attendees and apologies

Present

• Khadija Mohammed, Chair
• Nuzhat Uthmani, Diversity in the Teaching Profession and Education Workforce Subgroup (DITPEW)
• Monica Medina, Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) 
• Carrie Lindsay, Association of Directors of Education in Scotland (ADES)
• Samir Sharma, Education Leadership and Professional Learning Subgroup (ELPL)
• Louise Barrett, Scottish Council of Deans of Education (SCDE)
• Nikhat Yusaf, Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Network 
• Crisantos Ike, Member of Scottish Youth Parliament (MSYP)
• Pauline Stephen, General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS)
• Mélina Valdelièvre, Curriculum Reform Subgroup 
• Sam Anson, Deputy Director, Learning Directorate, Scottish Government
• Emma Bunting, Secretariat, Scottish Government

Apologies

• Carol Young, Coalition for Race Equality and Rights (CRER)
• Asif Chishti, General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS)
• Ndaye Lisa Badji, Intercultural Youth Scotland (IYS)
• Jovan Rao Rydder, Curriculum Reform Subgroup
• Laura-Ann Currie, Education Scotland
• Judith Ballantine, Learning Directorate, Scottish Government

Items and actions

Welcome and introductions

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting. Apologies were noted as above.

Guided mindfulness

The Chair outlined the rules regarding respectful dialogue.

Recognising the benefits of instilling mindful practice in all approaches to the Anti-Racism in Education (AREP) work, the group took 5 minutes to reflect. 

Minutes of previous meeting

Members were reminded of the discussion that took place at the previous meeting of the Programme Board on 29 November 2023. The minutes from that meeting were agreed as final. An update was provided on outstanding actions:

• developing the Young Workforce programme (DYW) Live working group to investigate how City of Edinburgh Council educators can participate in DYW live sessions, as they do not use Glow – Ongoing, No update at this time
• members were asked to submit any examples of best practice of positive action to Asif – Ongoing, Asif remains content to receive examples and thanked members for those already sent
• secretariat agreed to flag the issue of lack of signposting in a range of languages on all SG publications to Corporate Comms colleagues, in order that they can consider how to address. Ongoing, the Secretariate reminded members of the email sent on 3 November 2023 regarding the proposed inclusive communications duty as part of the Public Sector Equality Duty review
• members are encouraged to send further thoughts on the finance proposals via email to Secretariat. Ongoing, some updates were given under agenda item 6 
• members are asked to send in examples of emerging practice for illustration purposes in the summit commitment, in order that the document is as illustrative as possible. Ongoing, the Secretariat thanked members for the examples that have been sent to date

Education Reform (including National Discussion and Reform of Assessment and Qualifications)

The Chair thanked members who contributed to the AREP’s response to the most recent education reform consultation, in December 2023. This consultation set out specific proposals to establish a qualifications body and to address the need for greater involvement of pupils, teachers and wider stakeholders in decision-making. 

Subject to Parliamentary agreement, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills will return to Parliament to fully debate the proposals in Professor Hayward’s review of qualifications and assessments. 

The Chair advised members that this year the Bill, which will underpin the establishment of a new qualifications body and inspectorate function, will be laid before Parliament. New organisations are expected to be in place following the 2025 exam diet. 

A separate consultation, related to community learning, was highlighted and members agreed to respond as a Board. The consultation is open until 3 March 2024. 

Action: Secretariat to circulate information related to the Independent Review of Community Learning and Development: Call for Evidence – Practitioners and members to agree on how to respond.

Finance

Sam Anson gave an update on the most recent Scottish Government budget and highlighted that the financial landscape continues to be challenging but that education saw a 4.2% increase in resources. 

There were updates on two specific areas of spend:

• development of an anti-racist framework for educators – Members reflected that this should help to encourage senior-level leadership in relation to anti-racist practice. They highlighted the need for a focus on racial literacy
• creation of a website, linked to Education Scotland, to host AREP information and resources – Members felt that this was a positive development and agreed that it was useful to link to the Education Scotland website. Some reflection to be given as to limitations of using this platform

Progress updates from each of the chairs of the AREP subgroups

Subgroup chairs were asked to provide a verbal update on progress in their subgroups, based upon the written updates provided as annexes to these minutes.

Members reflected that written updates do not all follow the same format and this needs to be addressed going forward. 

Action: Secretariat to ensure that workstream written updates are consistent in format and content. 

Racism and Racist Incidents (see Annex A)

The RRI group Chair was not present.  

Diversity in the Teaching Profession and Education Workforce (see Annex B)

The DiTPEW Chair was not able to provide an update. 

Curriculum Reform (see Annex C)

The Chair updated members about the Cabinet Secretary’s recent visit to Drumchapel High School to meet with their Anti-Racist Club. This went really well and the Cabinet Secretary suggested the possibility of creating a qualification linked to anti-racist work in order to recognise the good work done. 

The Curriculum group received a presentation from the Hunterian Museum regarding the recommendations in the Empire, Slavery and Museums report which were accepted by Scottish Government.

The Curriculum group also had a presentation from the SQA at their most recent meeting about changes in language, particularly in relation to history and geography.  

The Small Grants Fund has received a number of applications

Education Leadership and Professional Learning (see Annex D)

The fourth Building Racial Literacy (BRL) cohort started in late 2023. They are seeing a range of participants coming through the Programme, including senior leaders. External evaluation of the BRL Programme is underway, due to conclude by March 2024. 

Members reflected on the importance of gaining senior level buy-in to the anti-racism agenda in order to enable systemic change.  

Anti-Racism in Education Summit

Logistical arrangements

The Secretariat are hopeful that both the First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills will be present and engaged in the Anti-Racism in Education Summit. In order to facilitate this it has been necessary to change the date from the 27 February 2024. The Secretariat are hopeful that the summit’s agenda and invitations will be issued shortly. 

Anti-racist commitment

The Commitment has received positive feedback from key stakeholders, including the Summit Steering Group. There was a reflection however that the document itself is too long and should instead be badged as guidance to accompany a succinct overarching commitment. Two draft commitment statements were circulated:

“We will all work in ways which tackle prejudice and embed anti-racist action in everything we do”.  

“Racism exists on our campuses and in our society.  Call it what it is and reject it in all its forms.  We stand united against racism.” (this draws from the Higher Education commitment). 

Members said that they were comfortable with this proposal and wanted to discuss finalising the short overarching commitment at the next meeting. 

Action: Secretariat to circulate high level summit commitment statement with minutes and to add discussion on these to the next meeting’s agenda. 

Young persons’ participation in summit

Board members are keen that young people be meaningfully engaged in the summit. Work is underway to establish the best way to facilitate this whilst being mindful of the need to safeguard any young people that participate, recognising the public nature of the event. 

Next steps and any other business

The Chair advised that this would be Crisantos’ last meeting of the AREP. Members were keen that thought be given as to how to engage young people in the programme going forward. 

Action: Secretariat to consider how to engage young people in the work of the Programme following the withdrawal of the Members of the Scottish Youth Parliament. 

The next meeting of this group will be held on 28 February 2024. 

Annex A - workstream reporting - Racism and Racist Incidents

Key updates and forward look

• the workstream agreed a work plan in December 2023 to schedule drafting of guidance for schools on responding to racist incidents
• the workstream considered an initial draft of the Introduction to guidance in December 2023 meeting, and a further draft will be brought back at a future meeting
• the January 2024 meeting will consider an initial draft of another early section of the guidance (“creating a whole-school anti-racist environment”)

Annex B - workstream reporting - Diversity in the Teaching Profession and Education Workforce (DiTPEW)

Key updates

• the twenty-fourth meeting of the DITPEW subgroup took place on 24 December 2024. The agenda covered updates on the following:
  • the anti-racism in education summit
  • progress towards diversifying the early learning and childcare workforce
  • development of an anti-racism framework for education employers
  • implementation of the SCDE’s national anti-racism framework for Initial Teacher Education (ITE)
  • the 2024 annual diversity in the teaching profession data report
  • succession planning for the end of Asif’s secondment to the GTCS and what this means for the DiTPEW group
• work is underway in relation the development of an anti-racism framework for employers to sit alongside the recent National Framework for Anti-Racism in ITE, published by the SCDE earlier in 2023. 
• the DiTPEW Co-Chairs and Secretariat met with the children and young people’s group being facilitated by IYS in December 2023. This was a really positive meeting and the young people raised some challenging but important points. The group look forward to receiving the formal recommendations and will formally respond as agreed

Forward look 

• the DiTPEW are supporting and will have final sign off of a new anti-racism framework for education employers. Work is being undertaken alongside the ADES Personnel Network
• the DiTPEW will engage with Scottish Government and Local Authority/ADES colleagues on work around clarifying guidance related to the use of positive action measures. Asif Chishti, as co-chair, has requested that members send any examples they know of that relate to positive action, which can be collated into a ‘scrapbook’
• the group will continue to support Khadija and SCDE to drive engagement with and support the ITE framework
• work with GTCS on their plan to gather additional data on previously registered teachers
• engagement has taken place with Universities and Colleges Admission Service (UCAS) about the potential for additional data that can be included in the annual data report, in particular to better understand the barriers that exist for minority ethnic applicants between the points of application and enrolment
• the DiTPEW are engaging with Alana Crawford, a PhD student at University of Strathclyde who is researching the experiences of minority ethnic students going through the ITE process. Alana intends to attend the Feb meeting of the DiTPEW to speak about her work
• work is underway to develop a session to be delivered as part of the Developing the Young Workforce programme. This will be focused on a range of issues such as pathways/how to be a teacher, what it means to be a teacher and support for teachers – all with a focus on encouraging minority ethnic children and young people into the profession. A small working group has been established to take this forward

Risks/issues/sensitivities

• negative comments on social media regarding positive action measures to promote race equality risk discouraging employers from taking these necessary steps and individual teachers will be deterred from applying for positive action measures if communications are not sufficiently robust
• members of the DiTPEW, and wider AREP, who are lead on this work in both a professional and personal capacity are at risk of abuse, including of a racist nature

Annex C - workstream reporting - Curriculum Reform

Key achievements

• Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills met with the Drumchapel High School Anti-Racist Society on 23 January. They presented on the aims and achievements of their school club and made a plea for anti-racism and a decolonised curriculum to be made mandatory and for a qualification that recognised anti-racism and global citizenship
• presentation on anti-racism and the curriculum at the event at The Hunterian to mark the Scottish Government response to the Empire, Slavery and Scotland’s Museums Report
• Small Grants Fund for children and young people-led activity open for bids with up to £25k available to allocate
• ScotDec and WOSDEC are completing the scoping exercise for the development of funded anti-racist curricular resources for Early Years and for Health and Wellbeing / PSE, in collaboration with a range of educators and people with lived experiences of racism

Forward look 

• meeting of full group arranged for 31 January 2024
• continue to seek opportunities to foreground anti-racism in education reform through response to the consultation on the Education Bill and the Shared Inspection Framework for Early Years
• discussion and engagement on the decolonisation of the social studies SQA content
• budget for curriculum activity in 2024-25 in place and discussions will shortly begin regarding extending and developing programmes of spend
• session on 26 February with Local Authority and independent school leads to share learning and reflections

Risks/issues/sensitivities

• news that MSYPs will no longer have the capacity to be part of the Curriculum Reform SubGroup

Annex D - workstream reporting - Education Leadership and Professional Learning

Key achievements

• cohort 4 of the BRL Programme began in October 2023 with XX participants across a range of groups including XX  
• at the last workstream meeting the group talked further about how best to continue to support programme alumni in terms of extending their learning and to support evolution of the BRL programme as well as the design and delivery of anti-racist professional learning outwith the BRL programme.
• external evaluation of the BRL Programme is now in place and due to complete by end March 2024

Forward look

• further consideration is being given to what an anti-racist leadership programme might look like in Scotland, with a specific focus on what education system leaders need to be doing at national, regional and local levels
• workstream members considering priorities for the next financial year in advance of budget discussions. Members keen to further support PL needs as identified in the other three workstreams and would welcome dialogue around this in advance of any decisions being made
• Group members keen to pick up the discussion on evaluation including logic model development
• Group members still keen to connect with broader work across SG including the Observatory work and would welcome guidance on how best to proceed