Anti-Racism in Education Programme Board minutes: November 2022

Attendees and apologies

Present

• Khadija Mohammed, Chair 
• Nuzhat Uthmani, Diversity in the Teaching Profession and Education Workforce Subgroup (DITPEW)
• Jovan Rao Rydder, Curriculum Reform Subgroup 
• Farah Farzana, Racism and Racist Incidents Subgroup 
• Matthew Sweeney, Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA)
• Peter McNaughton, Association of Directors of Education in Scotland (ADES)
• Victoria Smith, General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS)
• Louise Barrett, Scottish Council of Deans of Education (SCDE)
• Carol Young, Coalition for Race Equality and Rights (CRER)
• Ndaye Lisa Badji, Intercultural Youth Scotland (IYS)
• Nikhat Yusaf, Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Network 
• Crisantos Ike, Member of Scottish Youth Parliament (MSYP)
• Rosy Burgess, Scottish Youth Parliament (SYP)
• Laura-Ann Currie, Education Scotland 
• Judith Ballantine, Learning Directorate, Scottish Government
• Pauline Hendry, Secretariat, Scottish Government

Apologies

• Monica Medina, Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) 
• Sam Anson, Deputy Director, Learning Directorate, Scottish Government

Items and actions

Welcome and introductions

The chair welcomed everyone to the meeting of the Programme Board of the Race Equality and Anti-Racism in Education Programme (REAREP). Apologies were noted.

Minutes of previous meeting

The minutes from the last meeting were distributed with the papers for this meeting. An update was provided on the actions:

• Secretariat to circulate a note of the various deadlines for the different consultations – Closed, these were sent to all REAREP members on 2 November. 

There were no further comments and the minutes were agreed.

Update and overview of today's meeting

Members were reminded that at the group’s last meeting, the various Education Reform consultations were discussed. The group undertook some initial consideration of how best to respond to these.

There was general agreement that the four individual subgroups should each put together their own responses, in order to accurately reflect the complexity of the issues under each of the four themes. There was also some agreement that an accompanying, overarching Programme Board response would sit well alongside them, however there was some feeling that this might risk diluting the messages in the sub groups’ individual responses. 

Members were reminded that they can continue to use the consultation toolkits with wider groups. (These were distributed by Clair Henderson from the National Discussion Team after the September Programme Board).

Engagement with children and young people was also discussed at the last meeting, against the backdrop of the work which Show Racism the Red Card undertook earlier in the year. The discussion went on to identify what was missing from that engagement and members were clear that it was a sense of agency and ownership of the REAREP actions for children and young people, particularly from Black children, children of Colour and from racialised backgrounds. This should form the basis on which to take forward the next phase of work engaging children and young people. 

Programme Board draft Terms of Reference and Anti-Racist Principles

Some comments were received on the Terms of Reference from the Scottish Youth Parliament which have been included in the version attached to the agenda. Some further comments have been received from the Scottish Qualifications Authority which will be added and the document recirculated.

There were no further comments and members agreed to sign off the document.

ACTION: Secretariat to share final version of Terms of Reference and Anti-Racist Principles with members.

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

This is a rolling item on the agenda in order to keep Education Reform at the forefront of members’ minds, and to ensure that the key points made by the REAREP are taken on board as a result of the consultation process, and reflected in eventual outcomes. 

The National Discussion consultation on the future of Scottish education generally, closes on Monday 5 December. It consists of 10 free text box questions and is structured in a way whereby the Programme Board and the sub groups can send individual responses. 

The Qualifications and Assessment Review (Prof Louise Hayward) consultation exercise closes on Friday 13 January (the deadline has been extended from 16 December). It uses Citizen Space and is in a more structured format.

While the format of the National Discussion consultation (ten specific questions) is not set out particularly well for addressing issues of race, there is an option to include a file attachment to the response. However, it was agreed that responses should follow the consultation format as far as possible, to ensure that the detail is not overlooked.

Members considered that a strategic response would reinforce key points, outlining structural issues (such as the role of inspection) which run across all four workstreams. Members also felt that the four subgroup responses should be strong, visible and clear about their priorities. 

The DITPEW subgroup have created their individual response by focussing on their priorities and highlighting statistics that illustrate a lack of diversity among the teaching and education workforce. Quotes from children and young people have been included for impact and evidence of a lack of representation among teachers and the effect that has on children and young people.

The Curriculum sub group noted that they have a draft response which they were in the process of finalising

The Racism and Racist Incidents workstream have not met recently, and as a result the co-chairs were not clear on the group’s position on submitting a consultation response. The Secretariat agreed to speak with the workstream lead to gain clarity on the group’s approach.

ACTION: Secretariat to speak to Racism and Racist Incidents workstream lead regarding consultations.

It was agreed that the chair of each subgroup should submit their consultation response, members were asked to clarify this with each of their subgroups. (N.B. It was decided after this discussion that the responses could be submitted by REAREP Secretariat, if members would find that helpful. A separate email on this was sent to members)

ACTION: Chairs will raise with their respective subgroups to ensure a response is submitted to each consultation. (N.B. Action has been superseded by decisions made following the meeting, and is no longer required.)

Progress updates from each of the chairs of the REAREP subgroups

Sub group chairs were asked to provide a verbal update on progress in their subgroups. 

DITPEW

The group have met 13 times to date, most recently on 22 November. 

They have recently welcomed a new member to the group - Kevin Brack from Moray House, whose remit includes leadership programmes for teachers using positive action measures. 

The group are focussing on three priorities:

• developing a sponsorship model – this work is being led by Asif Chishti as part of his GTCS role
• addressing the lack of ethnicity data – how to encourage staff in the system to disclose ethnicity
• creating a workshop via Developing the Young Workforce Live - promotional workshops designed to attract young people into teaching. One will be aimed at schools with a high demographic of minority ethnic pupils

In addition, the group is looking to support the ITE Framework, promote its use and support its implementation. 

Curriculum Reform

This group haven’t met since the previous Programme Board meeting. The next meeting will be held on 14 December. 

The group’s focus is oriented towards developing their actions, which will be a priority in the coming year. Three smaller working groups will take forwards work relating to:

• resource development
• youth leadership grants fund
• continuation of anti-racist principles process

Consideration will be given to whether any shift in actions is required, or whether they are still appropriate and relevant to the ambitions of the group.

Racism and Racist incidents

No further meeting of this group is currently planned. Once a meeting is scheduled, the focus will be on agreeing the terms of reference and draft actions.

The group is attempting to move forwards, while maintaining trust among their members, but acknowledge that they are a few steps behind the other groups.

Education Leadership and Professional Learning (ELPL)

This group have created and launched the Building Racial Literacy programme, which has been well attended and received positive feedback.

The group’s actions are fully formed, but further work must be done on aligning these and ensuring they are effective. The evaluation framework may assist with this.

Update on the Initial Teacher Education (ITE) Framework

The framework has been created by Khadija Mohammed. It considers the teacher recruitment process from marketing teaching as a potential career to young people still at school, through the application and admissions processes, undertaking the course and placements and qualifying as a NQT, starting a probationary year. It is designed to tackle racism in universities by supporting students of colour and ensuring processes and practices are fit for purpose. Areas of action have been suggested and it will be interesting to see how the framework will be embedded within ITE programmes. The document will be shared with members once published. 

The draft framework has been presented to SCDE. Feedback on the content has been positive overall. It is anticipated that the framework will be published in 2023, with a formal launch event planned as part of an ITE development day in June.

The next SCDE council meeting is planned for mid-January. The ITE framework will be on agenda and a fuller discussion on the details will take place. 

ACTION: Secretariat to share ITE framework with members once published.

Members raised a query around the REAREP action plan, specifically where organisations have been identified as leads, or instrumental in taking forwards specific actions, in particular where those organisations are not members of the subgroup where responsibility for the action lies. There was concern that an organisation’s role in some actions may be misconstrued or misunderstood. 

The Secretariat advised that the large number of organisations referred to under the list of ‘owners’ next to each of the actions, is as a result of endeavouring to be as inclusive as possible in the drafting of the initial action plan, listing all organisations who might have an interest. This may have resulted in a perception that organisations should be taking forward actions of which they are unaware. It was clarified that it is for the chairs of each subgroup to ensure that all bodies listed as potential drivers for a specific action are agreeable to being involved, and that no organisation should be assigned an action without discussion.

If any organisation is listed under a specific action but doesn’t feel this is correct, they should contact the chair of each individual subgroup.

Presentation from IYS on how best to develop the co-design aspect of engagement with children and young people

Ndaye Lisa Badji from Intercultural Youth Scotland (IYS) presented an outline of best practice for engaging with children and young people of Colour on a long term basis, with a focus on co-design.

She noted the importance of context when engaging with young Black people and people of Colour (BPOC), saying that young people need to be equipped with the required background knowledge to ensure that they are able to contribute effectively.

Engagement should be youth led, with the young people deciding what they wish to work on. They should be provided with an understanding of the ladder of responsibility – this equips young people with the knowledge of who is responsible for implementing solutions both within and outwith government. 

It should not be presumed that those who experience racism have a deep understanding of anti-racism. Safe spaces should be created for engagement, with only BPOC members and BPOC facilitators. Wrap around services should be provided to ensure that appropriate care and support is offered. Young people should also be renumerated for their time and input.

Young people should have a strong relationship with the architecture of the REAREP itself, including an understanding of the work going on in subgroups. They should not be limited to comment on actions and minutes, but should be involved in the principles of the wider programme.

A simple and transparent terms of reference for the children and young people group would provide clarity about their role, membership, tenure and reimbursement.

An annual cohort of young people should be gathered together and revised every year, ensuring young people would be signing up to a long term commitment. The group should represent the most marginalised people with protected characteristics and intersectionality.

She noted that long term engagement with children and young people will require significant resource and that decisions on the priorities of children and young people must be made where resources are limited.

The Secretariat noted the current challenging fiscal landscape, which the Deputy First Minister set out in his Emergency Budget Statement last month, and what that means in terms of a lack of certainty around resources. The point was made as part of the consideration being given to budgets across the piece, the significance and potential impact of reducing funding available to the REAREP has been highlighted to Ministers.

IYS were clear that meaningful engagement with BPOC children and young people has not yet been carried out. They felt that the engagement previously carried out by Show Racism the Red Card (SRtRC) was a large scale consultation of children from different backgrounds. The engagement should be long term.

Issues relating to work carried out by SRtRC were raised. These related to a failure to embed anti-racist practice and the funding attached to the contract.

The Secretariat reiterated that the contract with SRtRC was cancelled due to a failure to meet contractual deadlines and obligations.

Members discussed engagement with children and young people that has been carried out as part of the Hate Crime Strategy. The information received from those young people could help inform the REAREP workstreams. Work done by and with organisations that make up the REAREP could be used as a foundation for the work that this group wish to undertake. This would help to reduce participation apathy and consultation fatigue among children and young people. 

Concerns were raised by members of sub groups in which progress has not been made, noting that the difficulties which are causing that lack of progress are frustrating and are leading to a perception that outputs are not being generated by the programme. The Secretariat agreed that some subgroups have faced challenges, however, other subgroups have made good progress delivering tangible outputs, which demonstrates that the programme is beginning to move forwards.

Members expressed a wish to see more long term thinking as part of the programme. The infrastructure must be implemented to ensure the overall success of the programme. 

The visibility of the children and young people’s group, as well as the wider REAREP, was also referenced, with a need for young people, parents and educators to be fully aware of the work being carried out.

It was suggested that in the event that a sustainable programme of engagement with children and young people can be established, a logic model be created which is shaped by the priorities of children and young people, to identify what effective action might look like to address them, ensuring resulting actions are effective, transparent and targeted. While engagement with children and young people was carried out at the inception of the programme, this was deemed insufficient by members and it was considered that there are actions where children and young people have not been consulted. 

Further to the discussion, members provided specific examples of where engagement with young people could potentially be carried out in communities and grass roots organisations:

• Al Masaar in Forth Valley
• SCOREscotland
• Active Life ClubAnyiso
• Be United
• Crossroads Youth and Community Association
• DRC Generations
• Glasgow Ansar / Ansar Scotland
• Glasgow Somali Youth
• Govan Community Project
• Isaro
• Multi-cultural Family Base
• Pollokshields Development Agency
• REEM
• SEMSA
• YCSA

The sustainability of engagement with children and young people is one of the main issues which the group would like to see resolution on. IYS are keen to hold further conversation with other interested bodies on this matter. The Scottish Youth Parliament and the EIS BAME Network indicated a desire to be involved.

Next steps and any other business

The Chair expressed her appreciation to all participants for their time and input and outlined the immediate next steps: 

• Secretariat will circulate the minutes of the meeting and the latest draft of the terms of reference and anti-racist principles by 8 December
• a one page template for workstream updates will also be circulated by the Secretariat for completion by subgroup chairs in advance of next PB. These will be shared with members along with the agenda, in order that everyone can come to the REAREP Board meetings already familiar with the update and able to ask more informed questions

The next meeting will be held on Wednesday 25 January 2023 from 15:00-16:30. There will be no meeting held in December due to the holiday period.

Any other business

• group name change proposal – note the change of name from Race Equality and Anti-Racism in Education Programme (REAREP) to Anti-Racism in Education Programme (AREP). Members were content with this change and it was agreed. The name change will take effect immediately
• anti-racism in education summit – the initial thinking around this event relates to the creation of a long term commitment which members of the education sector can sign up to, regardless of where they are on their anti-racism journey. The event will be held early next year and initial discussion around the content will take place next week.