Anti-Racism in Education Programme Board minutes: October 2024

Attendees and apologies

Present

• Khadija Mohammed, Chair
• Nuzhat Uthmani, Diversity in the Teaching Profession and
  Education Workforce (DiTPEW) subgroup
• Nikhat Yusaf, Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Network
• Pauline Stephen, General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS)
• Mélina Valdelièvre, Curriculum Reform subgroup
• Safia Ali, Racism and Racist Incidents (RRI) subgroup
• Louise Barrett, Scottish Council of Deans of Education (SCDE)
• Matthew Sweeney, Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA)
• Chereen Rain, Education Leadership and Professional Learning subgroup
• Jeff Macdonald, Strategic Team for Anti-Racism, Scottish Government
• Judith Ballantine, Learning Directorate, Scottish Government
• Emma Bunting, Learning Directorate, Scottish Government (Secretariat)
• Catherine Law, Learning Directorate, Scottish Government (Secretariat)

Apologies

• Monica Medina, Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA)
• Carrie Lindsay, Association of Directors of Education in Scotland (ADES)
• Carol Young, Coalition for Race Equality and Rights (CRER)
• Hakim Din, DiTPEW subgroup
• Laura Ross, Curriculum Reform subgroup
• Orlando Heijmer-mason, Deputy Director, Workforce Infrastructure and Digital, Scottish Government

Items and actions

Welcome and introductions

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting, noting apologies as above. She welcomed Jeff Macdonald to the Board as a new member, representing the Scottish Government’s Strategic Team for Anti-Racism.

Guided mindfulness

The Chair outlined the rules around ensuring respectful dialogue.

Recognising the benefits of instilling mindful practice in all approaches to the AREP work, the group took 5 minutes to reflect.

Minutes of previous meeting

The minutes from the previous meeting were agreed as final. The Secretariat provided an update on outstanding actions

• The minutes from the previous meeting were agreed as final. The Secretariat provided an update on outstanding actions – ongoing, the three subgroups have shared with the Secretariat all of the material which informs their respective group’s work. The Secretariat have begun to put dates in diaries throughout November and December for the Education Leadership and Professional Learning subgroup and the Curriculum subgroup. Due to capacity pressures in the Equality in Education Team, the Secretariat have agreed with Racism and Racist Incidents subgroup that they will commence their Theory of Change work in the new year
• group Members are to provide comments on IYS’ Youth Ambassadors’ recommendations by close of business on Monday 8 July – ongoing, the recommendations were discussed at the previous meeting and we will conclude this stage of the discussion today under agenda item 8
• the Secretariat to feedback Members' thoughts to Scottish Government colleagues working on the Anti-Racism Observatory – closed, the Secretariat have done so
• the Secretariat to confirm if/which Scottish Government colleague(s) working on the Anti-Racism Observatory will join the AREP Board – closed, Frankie McLean and/or Jeff Macdonald will join from the Equality Unit’s Strategic Team for Anti-Racism going forward
• the Secretariat will send out a summary of AREP post-summit event options, which Members will provide feedback on  – closed, this will be covered under agenda item 7

Watching brief due to current Scottish Government spending controls

• group Members were encouraged to send further thoughts on finance proposals and work plans, as well as where actions could be progressed with additional funding, via email to Secretariat – ongoing, Members were reminded of the current financial situation, spending controls etc, as discussed in the previous meeting. The Secretariat noted that it may be helpful for Members to continue keeping potential proposals in mind for a time when there is financial flexibility again
• the Secretariat agreed to consider how to engage young people in the work of the Programme following the withdrawl of the Members of the Scottish Youth Parliament – ongoing, the Secretariat again noted the current fiscal context and therefore it is not currently possible to remunerate young people for their engagement with the AREP Board. The Secretariat noted that the Board should continue to use the data already collated (e.g. outputs from IYS’ Youth Ambassadors and Show Racism The Red Card) to ensure input from young people
• the Secretariat agreed to contact Connect to discuss undertaking parental engagement in relation to the AREP – ongoing, the Secretariat met with Connect to discuss during the summer, however due to the current fiscal context, it is not possible to provide funding

Recap of previous meeting and overview of this one

The Chair reminded Members of what was discussed at the September 2024 meeting of the Board and provided a summary of that discussion. The Chair noted that members discussed the following

• the rolling agenda items on education reform and finance and agreed that going forward, these items, along with a progress report on the Anti-Racist Observatory, would be covered under one agenda item entitled "Scottish Government updates"
• updates from the subgroup leads on progress within their groups
• the set of recommendations from IYS's project to engage young people with the AREP. Members had a more conclusive discussion and agreed where different subgroups would contribute to cross-cutting recommendations
• the summit replacement event

Scottish Government updates

The Secretariat provided an update on education reform and financial controls and a colleague from the Strategic Anti-Racism Team provided an update on progress with the Anti-Racist Observatory.

Education Reform

Work continues on the Bill to create the three new bodies, the aim being that they will be in place by Autumn 2025. The procurement process for identifying a host for the new Centre for Teaching Excellence closed for applications on 7 October. A host will be appointed by the end of 2024.

Members reflected that it would be useful to have a Scottish Government lead for education reform attend the Board. It was felt that it might be helpful for the link to education reform to include the inspectorate.

Action: Secretariat to arrange for an education reform representative to attend the board.

Finance

Scottish Government spending controls continue in the current quarter. It is hoped that there will be more clarity following the upcoming UK Government and Scottish Government’s budgets.

Anti-Racist Observatory

The procurement process for identifying a host body for the Observatory is now in its evaluation phase. The Scottish Government’s website has also been updated to reflect the new design observatory group and includes that group’s Terms of Reference (Future Anti-Racism Observatory for Scotland: Design Advisory Group).

Progress updates from each of the AREP subgroups

The Chair referred members to paper 1 which contains all of the sub-groups’ actions in one place. She reminded Sub-group chairs that their verbal updates should be based on the written one and should reflect upon the key updates and milestones column of that document. She recognised that this may not always be entirely possible as some sub-groups meet shortly before the Board. Where that is the case, that should be highlighted during the verbal update.

DiTPEW subgroup updates

The group had been due to meet the day before the Board however the meeting was cancelled due to high numbers of apologies. Instead the Co-Chairs met with Scottish Government analysts to discuss the most recent HESA and UCAS data as well as upcoming data related to outcomes for ITE graduates following their probation period.

At the November meeting of the DiTPEW Asif will present to the group on the GTCS’ recent Equality Survey.

The DiTPEW group had been looking to organise an event to launch the Action Guide, this  will follow the replacement event for the summit. 

ELPL subgroup updates

Work is underway currently to update the work-grid and to include some new SMART targets.

Scotdec have recently launched their new anti-racist website (Anti-racist toolkit for teachers).

The Building Racial Literacy (BRL) programme is in the middle of cohort five and cohort six begins in November.  . The group  is currently looking to create short videos for social media, similar to those that have been done for the BRL, on the IYS Youth Ambassadors’ recommendations.

Work is underway to collect poetry and writing from young people about anti-racism in order to create a digital book of pupil voices.

Curriculum Reform subgroup updates

There has been a lot of cross-over in the work of the ELPL and Curriculum Reform sub-groups. The new Anti-Racist mentors are currently feeding into a lot of the work of the Curriculum Reform group including a group starting to look at modern studies resources.

Good connections are being made with Museums and Galleries Scotland in relation to the curriculum as part of the Empire, Slavery and Scotland’s Museums report.

There is currently an SQA working group looking at the language around history qualifications.

Due to staffing changes, the group will be looking for a full time and an interim co-chair. A meeting is taking place next week to reflect on options and meet potential chairs.

RRI subgroup updates

The group met the day before the Board meeting.

In June it was agreed that the workplan would be adjusted to prioritise identifying existing materials for schools to use in the interim whilst the Whole School Approach to address instances of racism is being developed.  . A first draft of this guidance was discussed at the recent sub-group meeting and should be ready for circulation by December 2024 and publication in Spring 2025.

The current CEMVO co-chair is leaving and work is underway to identify a new co-chair.

Board members asked how this guidance will deal with racism towards and perpetrated by staff members. At present it is expected that this shorter term guidance will focus on pupils although there may be scope for engagement with the DiTPEW group to identify materials for staff.  It was reflected that there is already the GTCS’ (Ethics in Teaching: Speaking up Guide for Teaching Professionals) and the EIS (Standing Together: Mobilising for Anti-Racism at Work) resource.

Tackling racism towards and by staff is something that is covered under the SCDE’s Anti-Racism in ITE Framework. At recent meetings of the Anti-Racism in ITE (ARITE) network the need to help student teachers identify and respond to microaggressions has been identified as a priority. There may be resources from this that can be shared.

Edinburgh Council have done some work with Scotdec around developing sessions on tackling racist incidents.

Anti-racism in education summit

The Chair referred members to paper 2 which reflects the comments and suggestions received following the circulation of a draft agenda for the summit event. Members were broadly content with the proposal but had the following additional comments

• there is a need to be very clear about how long speakers have on the agenda
• it may be good to include Newark Primary School's 'We are all special' video as part of the agenda
• the day should be structured around the 'pledge' and there may be a need for some sort of call to action at the end of the event
• thought could be given as to whether any of the event could be recorded for use afterwards, whilst being mindful of safeguarding considerations

IYS youth ambassadors' recommendations

Members were broadly content to proceed with the recommendations from the Youth Ambassadors and have agreed that they will be used to inform the work of the subgroups.

Any other business

The next formal meeting of the Board will be on 27 November 2024.