Racism and Racist Incidents subgroup minutes: June 2024

Attendees and apologies

• IYS
• Scottish Government Support and Wellbeing Unit (Chair)
• CEMVO
• EIS
• COSLA
• Independent racism consultant
• CRER
• Youthlink Scotland

Apologies

• Al Masaar
• YCSA
• Education Scotland
• University of the West of Scotland
• Respectme
• ADES
• Connect
• SCIS
• NASUWT
• CSREC

Items and actions

Welcome

The Chair opened the meeting and noted apologies. 

The Chair noted that IYS have a new representative on the group. However, she is unable to attend today’s meeting. The Chair welcomed the representative from IYS who is attending on her behalf. 

The Chair noted the workstream responsibilities in relation to co-working. 

The Chair was asked to clarify the chairing arrangements for the group, following the changes in representatives. The Chair confirmed that the CEMVO representative was a co-Chair, and that the SG is exploring arrangements for co-chairing with the new representative from IYS.

Minutes from the previous meeting

The Chair noted that the draft minute of the May meeting has been circulated to members. They have been asked to share comments by correspondence. A revised minute reflecting any changes will be circulated to the group by correspondence for their approval. Following this, the minute will be published on the Scottish Government (SG) webpage. 

Action: Group members to send any comments on minute of the May meeting by correspondence by 4 July. 

Workplan discussion

The Chair noted that at the previous meeting in May, the group had expressed concerns with the pace to develop the Whole School Approach (WSA) and indicated that there was a want to prioritise some aspects of the WSA to deliver quicker outputs. The Chair indicated that a paper had been circulated to the group in advance of the meeting to support their considerations of which aspects of the WSA could be prioritised. 

The paper suggested initial outputs were split into three parts:

• developing resources to provide guidance about steps schools should take when responding to a racist incident
• an update to the information available on the promoting race equality and anti-racist education’ web platform to include further context on the work of the group, the WSA and information on recording and monitoring
• identifying additional relevant resources which could be signposted to on the web platform

The group noted that this work will be in addition to work to develop the WSA and not instead of it. The Chair invited comments from the group on the proposals set out in the paper. The following comments were made:

• it was suggested that the group take time over the summer period to analyse the existing resources and consider how these could be updated or drawn from to inform the initial outputs. For example, the group has spoken previously above developing a flowchart to support schools to respond to racism and racist incidents. The conversation flowchart on prejudiced-based bullying within Respectme’s conversation guidance could be drawn from to develop this
• it was noted that resources on responding to racism and racist incidents will continue to make clear that this is separate to responding to bullying
• CRER noted that the Respectme guidance took a long time to develop and was done so at a time when education may not have been ready to fully embrace an anti-racism approach. Therefore, there may be an opportunity to resign the Respectme resource to align more to responding to racism and racist incidents
• it was noted that any RRI resources would align with the refresh of the national anti-bullying guidance, Respect for All (RfA). As the SG Support and Wellbeing Unit oversees both these policy areas, this would ensure coordination
• it is expected that RfA will be published first, before the WSA, and would signpost to the WSA. There are opportunities to draw from RfA, particularly on recording and monitoring. A number of members of the RRI group are represented on the RfA sub-group that is considering prejudiced-based bullying and have been providing relevant input 
• it was noted that the WSA will be embedded in the Equality Act and take account of work that is being done in other parts of the UK, such as the Macpherson Report from the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. Wider work on the WSA would progress following the prioritisation of outputs on responding to RRI
• it was noted that following the last meeting, local authorities have been asked to share detail of their policies and guidance on RRI. These will be shared with the group when they are received 
• the paper references Education Scotland’s thematic inspection on approaches to recording and monitoring incidents of bullying in schools which looked at the approach of 35 schools. It was noted that there is wider research available from CRER on policies and recording in Scotland’s schools on racially motivated bullying. This research will be shared with the group to consider as part of their work to develop initial outputs

The group indicated that they were content with the interim approach set out in the paper to prioritise the initial outputs that have been identified. The Secretariat will collate existing resources and share these with the group. The Secretariat will explore options such as Google Docs or Erdm Connect to allow group members to collaborate more easily. 

Action:  SG to share existing resources on an online platform to support collaboration on development of initial outputs. 

It was suggested that group do not meet in August and instead group members prioritise some time over the summer to consider existing resources and begin to draw out content from these that could be used to develop the initial outputs. The group will then meet in September to consider the content of these outputs.

It was noted that the workplan will be updated to reflect the changes to the approach. 

Action:

• group members to prioritise time over the summer to consider existing resources and how these could be adapted or drawn from to develop initial outputs.
• SG to cancel August meeting and identify meeting dates in September. 
• SG to update the workplan and circulate to the group. 

Update on response to Anti-Racist Education Youth Ambassadors

The Chair noted that the group has previously had the opportunity to provide comment on the recommendations from the Anti-Racist Education Youth Ambassadors, including a detailed discussion at their last meeting. 

The feedback received has been used to inform a draft response from the sub-group. This draft response will be shared with the group by correspondence shortly. The group will be asked to consider the draft response and whether they are content for it to be sent to IYS to share with the Ambassadors. Once finalised, the response will also be shared with the other sub-groups for information. 

IYS noted the action from the previous meeting to ask for clarification on one of the recommendations. It was noted that IYS have already shared the context of the discussion and the group have had the opportunity to consider their response in light of that. However, there will be a further opportunity to provide feedback on that or any of the other responses to the recommendations when the draft response is circulated. 

Action: SG to share draft response to the Youth Ambassadors’ recommendations with the group and seek the group’s approval for the response to be shared with IYS. 

AOB

The Chair asked if the group were content to invite Hardeep Kaur, the 2023 winner of the GTC Scotland Saroj Lal Award, to a future meeting of the group to talk about her work reporting of racist incidents in her school. 

The group confirmed that they were content with this suggestion. 

Action: invite Ms Kaur to a future meeting of the group.

The group also made suggestions for others who could be invited to future meetings. This included the IYS mental health service manager and the manager of CRER’s advice and advocacy service which is due to launch in August. 

The Chair indicated that she would consider with the co-Chairs, the timings for inviting guest speakers to ensure that the group can focus on driving work forward to deliver outputs. It was noted that there was also an opportunity to align the IYS and CRER services to the network on school counsellors. 

Date of next meeting

The next meeting of the group will be in September. The Secretariat will circulate a doodle poll for this meeting and for future meetings until the end of the year.

The focus of the September meeting will be to consider the content of initial outputs of the WSA as agreed at point 3 above. The Chair confirmed that members are welcome to provide feedback on previous sections of the WSA at any time. However, the group will return to considering these sections following the meeting in September to allow prioritisation of the initial outputs.

Action: SG will circulate doodle polls for meetings until the end of the year.