Race Equality and Anti-Racism In Education Programme (REAREP) Stakeholder Network Group Meeting presentation: October 2021

Items and actions

Initial thoughts on Time for Inclusive Education (TIE) presentation

• the simplicity of the website was helpful, as were the reflections and the sharing of practice
• the content is very appealing and relevant for young people, carrying strong currency, for example with references to Lady Gaga

• the extent to which TIE and Teachers collaborated was positive
• the setting out of the journey from activism to the delivery of curricular change was interesting and useful, even though we won’t by copying and pasting TIE’s approach there are still valuable examples of best practice which we can use
• more information on TIE’s experience of evaluation would have been helpful, in terms of our own evaluation process we need to make sure that it is ongoing, and has a localised approach
• it would be helpful to understand how TIE define lived experience, and how they centre it in what they do

 Which aspects of TIE’s model may work well when implementing anti-racist education in schools

• agree that there is a lot we can learn from, especially the reflections on collaboration to find solutions while civil servants were listening and responsive to challenges
• using the logic model was beneficial and an approach this group should adopt
• TIE demonstrated good decision making processes, which is something we can learn from, particularly in the Curriculum subgroup
• TIE’s whole-school approach is positive and what we’re trying to achieve, ethos and values and our outcomes, we can learn from that implementation
• similar to TIE’s point about the longer their work took, the more young people were experiencing abuse, every week that our work is delayed is another day that a child is experiencing racism and abuse
• taking stock of the way in which TIE’s campaign has been delivered with such urgency would be helpful, in order to add pace to our own ambitions
• TIE’s clear measurable action points of ambitions to achieve and dates on which to achieve them is helpful and we should adopt the same approach
• the action planning layout is helpful and makes explicit links to different strands of activity

Which aspects may not be as workable and why, and where there are aspects of our approach which were not covered by TIE’s approach

• the Seven Areas approach may not work for us – the nuances of structural racism could potentially be lost within it

• while using some aspects of TIE’s model may work, there remains a need to balance it as a way forward that lands well in the system, without compromising our anti-racist values
• questions were raised about the intersections of race and LGBT+ identities, how do we ensure that young LGBT people of colour are not left out? challenging whiteness is important in anti-racism
• the TIE model seemed to build more on policy and statutory guidance, perhaps in a way that was more comfortable and accessible for educators to increase their knowledge base and confidence, with race, there is perhaps more discomfort for educators to engage, especially with the more critical concepts of anti-racism, such as colonialism and white supremacy
• there is an additional layer of complexity in our work with the Diversity in the Teaching Profession and Education Workforce workstream (in that TIE does not have an equivalent ambition to increase the number of LGBT+ teachers in schools) Tthe visibility of race may make it more challenging for teachers and CYP of colour
• capacity especially in TIE is an issue, we cannot rely on a small group of individuals to deliver one-off sessions on anti-racism and LGBT inclusive education, there needs to be deeper, ongoing professional learning that includes identity work and critical reflection on privilege and power
• the TIE campaign does not necessarily cover the inclusion of families and them being involved in their children's education, we should be focusing more on that within the REAREP’s outputs and outcomes our work
• similarly, in terms of societal change, we need to ensure we are educating not just BPOC families but all families in the community, more work needs to be done to link our work to the wider society, the Community empowerment act could potentially support this, using the national parent forum to get parents involved
• our work relies heavily on educators of colour being involved in the process as well as youth workers and this is a different process compared to the one TIE used, and requires additional time and adjustments
• we may need more exploration and emphasis on lived experience and how they influence the work, it would be good to have space to lay out how this would work for us across all subgroups
• it would have been helpful to hear more about how TIE deliver locally and how they have developed/are developing the capacity to do this