Race Equality and Anti-Racism in Education Programme - Stakeholder Network Group minutes: January 2022

Attendees and apologies

Present

• Andrew Drought, Chairperson
• Andrea Reid, Senior Education Officer, Glasgow City Council
• Douglas Hutchison, Director of Education, Glasgow City Council
• Victoria Smith, GTCS, Director of Education
• Nahid Aslam, NASUWT
• Samir Sharma, QIO and Equalities Lead, Glasgow City Council
• Khadija Mohammed, SAMEE
• Matthew Sweeney, COSLA
• Ndaye Lisa Badji, IYS, Head of Advocacy and Partnerships
• Jovan Rao Rydder, IYS, Programme Manager
• Crisantos Ike, MSYP, Rutherglen
• Rosy Burgess, SYP, Events and Campaign Officer
• Maureen Finn, STEP
• Carol Young, CRER, Deputy Director
• Farah Farzana, CEMVO
• Katie Rafferty, RespectME
• Asif Chishti, Modern Languages Teacher, Fife Council
• Judith Mohamed, HT, Old Machar Academy, Aberdeen City Council
• Lesley Whelan, Education Scotland
• Jacqueline Nimmo, Education Scotland
• Mélina Valdelièvre, Education Scotland
• Aqeel Ahmed, Equality Unit, Scottish Government (SG)
• Judith Ballantine, Equality in Education Team (SG)
• Emma Bunting, Equality in Education Team (SG)
• Hazel Bartels , Curriculum Unit (SG)
• Catherine Jamieson, Support and Wellbeing Unit (SG)
• Keith Dryburgh, Education Analytical Services
• Pauline Hendry, Secretariat, (SG)

 

Apologies

• Nuzhat Uthmani, P7 Teacher, Glasgow City Council
• Selma Augestad, EIS
• Annette Foulcer, Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA)
• Lewis Hou, The Anti-Racist Educator
• Michael Roach, Head of Education, Inverclyde Council
• Peter McNaughton, ADES

Items and actions

Welcome and introductions

The chair welcomed everyone to the tenth meeting of the Race Equality and Anti-Racism in Education Programme (REAREP) Stakeholder Network Group and noted apologies. New members were asked to introduce themselves.

Ndaye Lisa Badji introduced herself as a representative of Intercultural Youth Scotland. She replaces Amy Allard-Dunbar on the Stakeholder Network Group.

It was noted by the chair that Douglas Hutchison replaces Maureen McKenna who has now retired as Director of Education at Glasgow City Council. In addition, following her own retirement, Professor Rowena Arshad has decided to step down from this group, but will continue on the Diversity in the Teaching Profession and Education Workforce sub group in the short to medium term.

Minutes of previous meeting

The minutes from the last meeting (paper 10/02) were distributed with the papers for this meeting. An update was provided on the actions:

• to consider options around a group of Children and Young People that could work alongside the wider group – This action is closed. The contract for establishing and managing the Children and Young People group for the next 12 months has been awarded to Show Racism the Red Card. The first meeting of the group is due to take place in February and an early priority for them is to consider this group’s agreed action plan. We’ve invited Show Racism the Red Card to attend the next meeting of this group in order that they can talk through their plans for the engagement with Children and Young People
• look for input from the group on the evaluation tender specification. Officials will initiate process with analytical and procurement colleagues, and will be back in touch to draft and agree a specification that everyone is happy with and captures what is needed. This action is being discussed today under agenda item 3
• Secretariat to arrange meeting with Matthew Sweeney to continue conversation about COSLA’s input to the programme – Secretariat have been in touch with Matthew to set up a meeting

There were no further comments and the minutes were agreed.

REAREP evaluation framework

Keith Dryburgh, Education Analytical Services spoke to paper 10/03. The paper is a draft specification, the type of which the Scottish Government normally uses to procure the services of an organisation or individual who can develop an evaluation framework. The specification was drafted in response to the discussion this group had at the August meeting as well as the follow up survey (which Secretariat undertook in November) on developing such a framework.

Three procurement options were presented and the group was asked which of the three they would prefer to take forward:

1. Issue a procurement that requires an expert facilitator with lived experience, anti-racist knowledge and an education background.
2. Issue a procurement which requires an expert facilitator with the additional requirements being desirable and if not available specify that the expert facilitator must work closely with a representative from each of the four sub groups to provide the lived experience required.
3. Issue two separate procurements – one for an expert facilitator and one for a researcher with lived experience to assist with facilitation and data analysis.

There were some points of discussion regarding the paper:

• paragraph 14 of the specification lists the aims of the evaluation framework – the last bullet endeavours to ensure “…that the voices of children and young people are integral to the evaluation”, but there is not a similar bullet to ensure that the voices of Black and minority ethnic people are integral to the evaluation. It was stated that this should be added to this section

• there was some discussion around whether the evaluation is intended to evaluate the experience of stakeholders who sit within the REAREP structure as well as the outcomes of the REAREP. It was suggested that the accessibility of the space leads to progress of making structural change – it must be a safe space to come forward and contribute to discussions. In addition, a policy review for the Scottish Government carried out by CRER showed that weaknesses in the policy development process can lead to poor implementation and outcomes of actions. Consideration will be given to how to ensure continuous improvement in respect of that experience, as well as ensuring formal evaluation of the agreed outcomes of the programme
• it was highlighted that members would like the evaluation to ensure young people’s views and experiences are brought to the forefront, via a facilitator who has experience facilitating meaningful participation of children and young people (particularly seldom heard young people)
• the scope of requirement within the evaluation framework needs to have safeguarding processes in place in order to be fully accessible
• it was suggested that organisations should be encouraged to submit joint applications and have groups integrate organically, rather than be forced together via circumstance, as proposed per procurement option three
• option 1 in the draft specification is preferable in terms of meeting the needs of the group, but there does remain a risk of not finding an organisation which possesses this skillset in its entirety. The second option may be more likely to have someone meet the requirements but is less agreeable to the group. Keith agreed there would be value in searching the market and attempting to find a supplier to meet the specification if option one was pursued

Members expressed preference for the first procurement option. The specification should be amended to specify that joint submissions will be welcomed.

Action: Secretariat to liaise with Education Analytical Services colleagues to finalise the specification draft and schedule for discussion and sign off by members at a future Stakeholder Network Group meeting.

REAREP stock take part 2

Judith Ballantine, Secretariat, spoke to paper 10/04 which outlined what the current REAREP structure looks like and provides a suggestion for a revised structure, based on members’ suggestions.

The paper is intended to reflect the suggestions which members made during the breakout discussions at the last meeting, as well as feedback received during the year the group has been meeting. The aim of making these changes is to improve the structure of the programme, facilitating improved outcomes as we go forward in to a more action oriented phase.

It is anticipated that a more robust Programme Board will emerge, the Stakeholder Network Group will continue to exist (but play a less central role in driving the programme forward), and subgroups and the children and young people group will take forward the actions.

In discussion, the following points were made by members:

• members appeared supportive of the changes being proposed overall. Slowing down the Stakeholder Network Group puts more onus on the Programme Board’s communication and clarity
• in terms of a Programme Board chair, there is a need to identify an individual with both lived experience and anti-racist knowledge, while reflecting the needs of the programme
• some Stakeholder Network Group members are not represented in subgroups and some members of subgroups are not members of the Stakeholder Network Group. This can result in an element of their voices being lost and some discussions start happening during subgroup meetings that are really for the Stakeholder Network Group, not the subgroup. – a suggested online function or hub might be somewhere everyone can participate on topics relating to both the Stakeholder Network Group and subgroups
• mapping of relationships between all groups, as well as an understanding of what the roles of each group are, would be helpful – descriptors could be developed for the existing plan, adding the direction of traffic and reporting procedures
• an important aspect for groups is the understanding of what each group’s decision-making powers are, so that the right decisions are made by the right group at the right time
• teachers panel – consideration is being given to how to proceed with establishing such a panel which would link in to the REAREP structure
• a member suggested that a panel of anti-racist organisations would help to embed an anti-racist approach in the work – it was suggested that organisations that are already part of the REAREP could form a panel to ease communication channels
• some discussion was held on the proposal to have a new chair of the Programme Board – if this was to be someone who was already a member of the programme, there would be concerns about neutrality. It was considered it would be better to employ the services of a Black or person of colour professional to take on this role, someone impartial and with the skills to pull diverse voices together, without an already vested interest in the outcomes
• members floated the idea of the General Teaching Council of Scotland being part of the Programme Board, given their obligations to the teaching profession
• members would like to see more involvement of children and young people in the REAREP – there is hope that the children and young people group will help make this change, but concerns that the group has to be fully integrated into REAREP work, not sit alongside it

The suggested ‘online format’ of the Stakeholder Network Group was queried – group emails could become problematic in terms of understanding the direction of movement – in person communication is deemed most efficient and effective. It was confirmed that consideration is still being given to a hub such as Slack or Knowledge Hub in order to carry out some, but not all, of the functions of the Stakeholder Network Group, electronically.

Action: Comments will be considered and taken into account in a finalised paper to be agreed by the group.

Presentation of thematic sub groups’ agreed actions

Members were thanked for their work so far which has led them to this point. The chair acknowledged that some discussions have been challenging to navigate, but that they move us further along a path which we need to travel in order to get to a point where we have Ministerial sign off for our shared ambitions, and can begin to effect change on the ground.

Each subgroup nominated someone to present the actions which they believe will achieve anti-racism in schools within their thematic areas.

The following key points were made:

Lesley Whelan, School Leadership and Professional Learning

• clear that the work of this workstream must underpin the other three subgroups. The vision has been identified and agreed
• the core piece of work so far has been the Building Racial Literacy programme. By supporting and building racial literacy in the education system, the group will be able to build on and achieve other ambitions
• creating content to be used long term and learning from the process

Some discussion points relating to the Building Racial Literacy Programme:

• it was noted that 27 local authorities are participating in the Building Racial Literacy programme. The remaining 5 local authorities will be contacted and encouraged to join the next cohort of the programme
• a discussion about the monitoring, evaluation and feedback processes in place for the BRL programme clarified that the first cohort is responsible for developing the programme with evaluation built in. Safeguarding processes have been central to the planning for the programme, with the employment of compassion captains to help reduce racial trauma
• in terms of the reporting process of the Building Racial Literacy programme, the current phase will demonstrate whether the programme is a valuable opportunity for participants and that commitment to it exists. This will be reported to the Programme Board
• it was confirmed that the Regional Improvement Collaboratives are among the partners involved in the programme, and will continue to be engaged on the next stages of development
• the role of children and young people in the development of the process was raised. It was noted that some engagement with children and young people had taken place in relation to the programme, using video work with children and young people to learn and build on. Engagement with the Children and Young People Group is an action point for the School Learning and Professional Leadership subgroup
• a final clarification was provided, confirming that a mix of denominational and non-denominational schools make up the first cohort

Overall the group agreed that the action plan looked appropriate, and was clear and concise in its aims.

Victoria Smith, Diversity in the Teaching Profession and Education Workforce

• there has been constructive collaboration within the group, resulting in a well-developed and comprehensive set of actions
• challenging issues and discussions have been held, in a solutions-focussed way. The actions will likely continue to evolve and there is natural overlap between the actions themselves and with other subgroups
• it is anticipated that the Senior Education Officer (National Race Diversity Lead) will support the work of the subgroup going forwards
• the group are hoping to liaise with Khadija Mohammed on the National Diversity Framework

Some discussion points:

• the Diversity in the Teaching Profession and Education Workforce subgroup intend to work with the Racism, Racist Incidents and Bullying subgroup in order to ensure that the actions of each group are aligned on the topic of racism, racist incidents and bullying experienced by teachers and the education workforce
• on the topic of the final outcome about Data Collection and Diversity, there was a query about the role of the Directors of Education in each local authority and how they fit into dealing with racism and recruitment. The subgroup intend to ensure that Directors of Education are weaved into the process through representation from the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland. It was further clarified that the role of ‘Director of Education’ varies across the 32 local authorities. Different titles (e.g. Director of Education, Director of Children’s Services, Deputy Chief Executive etc.) mean that not all local authorities have a specific ‘Director of Education’ post, but all of those posts will have responsibility for education.
• the 2018 data report recommendations note that ethnicity data is not as robust as it could be, as not all teachers declare their ethnicity when asked. There may be sensitive reasons for this, and it was suggested that the subgroup may be a suitable avenue to explore that further

• in relation to the second set of recommendations, a point was raised about ensuring the dynamic is not solely focussed on recruitment and issues around that – a major barrier seems to be that minority ethnic young people do not want to become teachers, school was not a safe place for them, and assistance is required to help these young people find their places in a teaching environment. The draft actions contain provision to develop initiatives to make teaching more attractive to young people, and career changers, from ethnic minority backgrounds

The group indicated that the action plan seemed appropriate overall, however the use of acronyms was noted as being a barrier to accessibility.

Jovan Rao Rydder, Curriculum Reform

• a set of emerging recommendations have been developed, and broad areas of ambition have been identified
• overarching principles were outlined – centring lived experience; and future proofing the curriculum framework
• an anti-racist approach is being taken to all aspects of the work in order to combat structural racism within the curriculum
• suggestions include:
  • the creation of multiple roles to support the work of the group, such as a National Anti-Racist Curriculum Champion
  • the inspectorate function of education needs to come from a place of anti-racist knowledge
  • teachers to be supported towards change instead of laying out requirements to be followed
  • a review and development of curriculum resources – potentially the need for a future working group to take on this area in order to develop and curate high quality resources
  • a need to include parents/children/young people/teachers and the wider community
  • the establishment of a one stop shop for resources, guidance and professional learning, presenting a unified approach to this for practitioners, instead of disparate pieces of work
  • work with the Scottish Qualifications Authority to include race equality and anti-racist content in the development of new and adapted courses
  • raising profile of work – interest in creating a dedicated website for the curriculum work. Visible leadership from senior SG Ministers would raise engagement
  • co-design with the Children and Young People’s Group
  • sharing of existing good practice, learning from other countries in the UK and beyond
  • engagement with other workstreams necessary to address areas of overlap

Overall the group indicated that the action plan was appropriate.

Cathy Jamieson, Racism and Racist Incidents

• the group have agreed 2 main outcomes with associated actions.
  • to develop a whole school approach to embed actions to tackle racism and racist incidents in schools
  • children and young people’s voices are actioned within the work of this workstream, and in all outputs
• the workstream are considering a skeleton whole school approach, which will allow the diverse outputs that will support schools to be brought together allowing schools to access these easily. The skeleton model is not yet formally agreed, and will be determined by the subgroup
• a focus will be on strengthening the approach to recording and monitoring of racism and racist incidents
• there are links to the work of other workstreams in several areas
• an area of future development will focus on guidance for schools to support teachers who experience racism
• parents, carers and families will be involved
• the Stakeholder Network Group will be kept updated with developments, but the focus so far has been on agreeing outcomes
• an ongoing discussion about how to address the issue of bullying has been a matter of significance for this subgroup. Feedback will be provided to the Stakeholder Network Group at a future meeting, which will outline how the workstream proposes to address the issue. There is strong support in the subgroup for changing the title of the group to remove the word bullying, but they recognise that the remit has been provided by the Stakeholder Network Group, so the matter must be revisited to gain agreement to this proposed change

Overall, the action plan was agreed to be appropriate by the members.

Action: all sub group leads to remove acronyms from their action plans.

Action: Schedule agenda item at future Stakeholder Network Group to further discuss the title of the Racism, Racist Incidents and Bullying subgroup.

Subgroups will take on board the points raised and reflect these in their actions. For many of the actions, this will mean a collaborative process involving working across the groups.

Any further comments on the action plans presented can be submitted via email to Secretariat up until close of play on Thursday 10 February 2022. The Secretariat will use them to create one overarching programme document which will be shared with the Children and Young People’s Group for comment, and sent to REAREP members with the meeting papers for the next Stakeholders Network Group meeting. That meeting will be devoted to considering this programme document and aiming to get it to a place where it can go to Ministers for sign off.

Action: Members to submit any further written comments on presented action plans by close of play on Thursday 10 February 2022.

Next steps and AOB

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

• REAREP Secretariat will circulate the minutes of today’s meeting by 4 February
• confirm that the next meeting of the group will take place on Thursday 24 February at 15:00 (NB: There has been a change to the date provided at the time of the meeting. The next meeting will take place on Thursday 3 March 2022 at 15:00)
• we propose to use the session as an opportunity to consider and agree the overarching programme
• representatives from Show Racism the Red Card will also attend the meeting in order to present their vision for taking forward the Children and Young People’s group

Papers

 

Discussion paper: REARAP evaluation - draft outline specification

Discussion paper: structure and governance review part 2