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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/27/cost-of-living-crisis-one-in-five-parents-spend-less-on-books-for-their-children

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Cost-of-living crisis: one in five parents spend less on books for their children

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Survey of more than 3,000 parents across Great Britain found 40% are struggling financially, with parents increasingly relying on school libraries

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https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/feb/24/merseyside-pupils-protest-over-strict-skirt-length-checks-by-male-teachers

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A school has been accused of "degrading" and "inhumane" treatment of female pupils after they were made to line up so that male teachers could inspect the length of their skirts.

Pupils at Rainford high school in St Helens, Merseyside, have held protests after girls were threatened with suspension over the length of their uniform.

One parent said her daughter had been treated "like an animal" after she was "herded" into an auditorium so that her skirt could be inspected by male teachers.

Kevin Lees, 53, said his 15-year-old granddaughter came home in tears after being told she would face a formal reprimand because her skirt was an inch above her knee.

He said: "She was just feeling degraded, humiliated. She didn't really want to go to school the following morning."

Another parent, who did not want to be named, said her 12-year-old daughter had been left upset after her clothing was inspected by a male member of staff.

She said: "She went into her classroom and a male member of staff was there bending to the side to look at all the girls' skirts. She said she felt it was really creepy and she didn't like it. She was quite upset about it."

The parent said her daughter had a medical condition and she would "never, ever send her to school in a short skirt". She added: "We're normally really rule-abiding people but this is just ridiculous."

The school's uniform policy, published in 2020, requires skirts to be "knee length", but parents said this had only been enforced strictly since Tuesday.

They said pupils were being punished for wearing skirts that were on the knee but not fully covering it, and that others who could not find a fitting skirt had been threatened with suspension.

Footage on social media shows hundreds of pupils gathered in the hallways of the school in protest at the strict policy. One video on TikTok has been viewed more than 1.5m times.

Nearly 1,800 people have signed a petition urging the principal, Ian Young, to stop punishing girls for the length of their skirts.

Lexi Pennington, who started the petition, said staff were treating girls "like animals" as they were "herded into a penned-in section in the auditorium to be inspected". She said it was "very demeaning and almost inhumane to the female students being inspected by the male staff".

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Another parent said her daughter had been threatened with suspension for wearing a skirt that was "barely above the knee" and was the longest available because she is slim.

She wrote: "This attitude that girls are responsible for boys/mens behaviour because of their clothes needs to stop! It is outdated and sexist!"

The school did not respond to accusations of "degrading" or "sexist" treatment but said in a statement that it had a "clear uniform policy" and understood "there are often sensitivities around this matter".

It added: "Student voice is important in all aspects of school life, and we have been keen to find an acceptable viewpoint on uniform from all members of our school community. Work has been, and is continuing to be, undertaken with our young people by consulting student leadership teams to find an agreeable solution for both staff and students.

"Our focus is for all our young people to exemplify and learn the importance of high standards and expectations, so they are ready to contribute to the wider community as successfully as possible."

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Merseyside pupils protest over strict skirt-length checks by male teachers

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A school has been accused of "degrading" and "inhumane" treatment of female pupils after they were made to line up so that male teachers could inspect the length of their skirts. Pupils at Rainford high school in St Helens, Merseyside, have held protests after girls were threatened with suspension over the length of their uniform.

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https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/feb/20/us-school-segregation-race-integration

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I scan the demographics in the room like a statistician, curious at how diverse it is. Craning my head to discern how many languages are being spoken around me, how many nations are represented. I wonder about the span of ages, people with disabilities, and race. Always race.

It's beautiful. A moving, living thing. A diverse community in action, teeming with difference. But then I think of the dread I often feel walking through the school playground at pickup time. Same school but, somehow, a different demographic.

In the leafy, progressive part of northwest Washington DC, where I live, social and cultural divisions are clearly on display on playgrounds. Nannies from various countries gather in groups to socialize, always keeping a watchful eye on the babies and toddlers in their care. Mothers who can afford not to work wear expensive workout gear accessorized with even more expensive baby gear. And there is the still unusual and often solitary dad on playground duty for whatever reason.

We joined our local school when our eldest was four years old; he's now 10. We deliberately chose it for its warmth, small size and history of cultural diversity. We have friends here. And yet, my discomfort on the playground remains because I belong to several groups and none at the same time.

I'm often the sole Black mother walking through a sea of white parents. The tide of whiteness regularly swallows up everything other than itself and I feel starkly exposed and different.

Our school is one of the more racially diverse in this part of town and yet much of the social activity that surrounds it - the Parent Teacher Association, fundraising, volunteering and life on the playground - feels dominated by white parents. Parents of color are underrepresented. Is it because they don't feel welcome? Is it a problem of distance, free time, work schedules or financial pressures? I have struggled with participating for all these reasons.

Let me be clear: there are no dirty looks or any outward forms of exclusion - no hostility whatsoever. I am by no means walking through the torrent of rocks and spit and hatred spewed on the first families to integrate schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, in the 1950s. But I do hear those echoes somehow.

No one is throwing rocks, but being the only one leaves a mark. Washington DC is a notoriously segregated city and the school system has always shown the evidence, even in its most "liberal" spots.

For me, there are echoes, there are ghosts.

My grandparents designed a study commonly known as " the doll test ", in which they used four dolls, identical except for color, to test children's racial perceptions. Black and white dolls were presented to children to help determine their preferences and sense of self. Most of the children preferred the white dolls to the Black ones. They said the Black dolls were "bad" and the white dolls looked most like them, reflecting not how they actually looked but how they wanted to be.

The findings helped the supreme court to conclude that segregation was detrimental to the self-esteem of Black and white children, and that "separate but equal" was a doctrine that should not stand.

On the day the court handed down its decision, my grandparents were thrilled. My mother, Kate, who is now 82, recalls: "There was such joy. People calling up, people coming by. It was just ecstasy. People were so happy, my father making a lot of noise, yelling and carrying on.

"There was euphoria but very quickly everybody knew that it wasn't going to be utopia, that this wasn't going to happen easily and indeed, it didn't happen easily in the south," my mother says. "The north was actually worse than the south, not by law, but by neighborhood, because Black people lived in this neighborhood and then they went to that school."

In the seven decades since the Brown decision, various local and national programs to enforce school integration such as busing, which involved transporting students to schools in different neighborhoods to improve racial diversity, have been largely unsuccessful, met with vitriol, violence and crucially a lack of will to train teachers, community leaders and families about how to connect after generations of social and economic apartheid.

Almost 80 years after my grandparents completed the doll test, segregation remains a fact of life in much of America.

At other times, the house was museum-quiet. The library, a gift from my grandmother to my grandfather, had high sloping ceilings and oddly shaped windows, and a massive desk that dwarfed us all. Books upon books were interrupted by paintings and sculptures as well as medals and awards with one or both of their names engraved.

My grandfather, who wore tortoise-shell glasses, would be there writing and studying, with his pack of Marlboro red cigarettes never far from his hands. He did not seem to bear the visible scars of racism; he carried an urbane, professorial dignity and could never be referred to as anyone's "boy".

The author's grandfather, Dr Kenneth Clark, in a documentary with James Baldwin, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.

On some Saturday mornings, my grandmother would heat an iron comb on the gas stove and use it to straighten my and my sister's hair. My sister and I sometimes went to the attic to touch her clothes: taffetas, fur, embroidery, African prints, silks. My grandmother was available and warm in her own way, while also being impossibly beautiful and elegant. She held herself and others to incredibly high standards. Raised as a Black woman in the deep south, she knew she had to be twice as good.

It all sounds grand as I write this and yes, my grandparents had risen to a social class that defied the rules for who could be upwardly mobile in US society. They were the first two Black PhD graduates in psychology from Columbia University, and they founded the first Black thinktank in the US. My grandfather was the first African American president of the American Psychological Association. He was a university professor and the author of several books on the subject of inequality in American cities and its consequences on children and communities of color.

Together my grandparents founded the Northside Center for Child Development in Harlem - a center for children and families that supports behavioral, mental and educational health. It was one of the first centers of its kind, founded over 70 years ago and still in operation today. The contributions they made in their fields continue to influence families, students, professors and lawmakers.

But it is also true that no matter how much opportunity or privilege they may have had access to, there would always be sharp reminders of our status as Black people in the US.

My grandfather, in particular, gained national renown as a champion of racial integration. Born to Jamaican parents and arriving in the US via Ellis Island, he had an immigrant's faith that every child, if given the right tools, could claim their share of the American dream. He thought education was the key. He therefore rejected the calls of 1960s radicals for Black nationalism and separatism.

Later in the 1960s, 1970s and beyond, he became known as an elder in civil rights circles, a thinker, a leader - and always an "integrationist", as the title of a 1982 New Yorker magazine profile put it. But the term was not always meant to flatter. To join forces with white people has always been charged territory for many Black activists, as marginalization and racism continue to be insidious even in the most enlightened, the "safest", of spaces.

My grandfather was not afraid to be contrary and could easily be stubborn in the face of criticism. He certainly received it from all sides. Some found him arrogant and committed to respectability while others thought he pushed too hard. He moderated several televised roundtables and discussions with his peers, notable thinkers and activists of the day including Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr, and his friend James Baldwin, bringing together disparate perspectives that he didn't always agree with.

He wasn't so much interested in consensus but solutions, and he was willing to get his reputation a little dirty in the process. He even seemed to enjoy a little bit of conflict, knowing he had refuge in a tight circle of friends and confidants - above all in my grandmother. He never recovered his spark after she died too soon.

My mother decided to respond by working hard and being a successful student, eventually becoming president of the honor society - though she was not welcome to join her classmates socially or in their homes.

As much as I wish it wasn't true, my identity, journey, history, past, present, future are linked to this interconnection - the best and the worst of it

I went to the same middle school, in the same predominantly white suburb as my mother, and was successful too. I was also more able to integrate socially. I found a little group of friends and was invited to dinner and parties and sleepovers, though I can't say that I ever truly found connection or community. I had a nagging, subtle sense of not belonging. My fellow students would ask to touch my hair and express curiosity about my "exotic" life even though I lived in the same small world they did. I did not find my people there.

Later, I switched to a private high school in Manhattan. It was my choice: the quiet streets of our provincial town were no match for New York City and all its cultural delights. I also had a desire to achieve and contribute in the way I saw my parents and grandparents doing. That education might be the way forward was not lost on me. The school was and still is known for educating an elite class of movers, shakers, achievers - it is said that those who can afford these schools are purchasing a near guarantee of success later in life.

There were more students of color than in my previous school but still not many, and often they were city kids, not soft and suburban as I felt. It seemed that the Black and Hispanic students were there to diversify the population, more as a feature of the place rather than a part of it. Academically, I fared well; internally, I was trying to keep my head above water.

Black boys, in my view, were often the most othered, stereotyped and made to suffer for being different, a problem we have not yet solved in or out of the classroom. I learned first-hand that the consequences of that pressured environment could harshly affect students of all races; the evidence was clear in drug and alcohol abuse, mental health problems and social dysfunction. I carry the scars from that time and worry that my own son will suffer through unconscious bias or indifference to his glowing potential, as I have witnessed among so many of my male counterparts and relatives, regardless of the type of school he attends.

College was different for me. Finally, I found true racial diversity and I found my people - friends who shared my interests and my quirks, who brought out my strengths and softened my insecurities. Most of my new friends were Black. Some would call it self-segregation, but I found home with the people that looked like me, understood me and felt like family.

I went even further by spending a semester at Spelman College in Atlanta, the well known historically Black college for women.

I told my grandfather, feeling proud of my choice. It was the only time he ever shut me down. He openly disapproved, implying that I was limiting myself. I wish I could have made him understand that my choice was based in love for us - our community and myself. My grandmother had died years earlier and I believe she might have understood - I wanted to study with those amazing Black female academics and sit with my sisters as we did it.

My time at Spelman remains a magical moment in my memory. The friends I made and still have, the professors who nurtured both my feminism and femininity, a culture that fed all of my cravings - that period is golden in my mind.

My grandfather died in 2005, deeply disappointed that the systems of racism and segregation in housing and schools remained entrenched, his vision for the country unfulfilled. My mother says: "My father died a very angry man because he was confronted with segregation in every way."

Her husband - my father - Don Harris, 82, a civil rights activist in his youth, adds: "He became increasingly depressed and bitter about what the future would look like. Both he and my own father were bitter that things hadn't moved faster and been more positive for Black people.

"Kenneth's grand scheme, at the end, is so dependent upon white people to make it work and the reality is that none of us really trust white people. You're not going to put all your trust and confidence and hope in them to make the dream happen. If you do that, you're not going to have a dream; it won't be realized, it will be deferred, once again."

avid, the father of my children, my husband, is white - though he is British, not American (and full disclosure: he's a journalist at the Guardian). The caveat counts for me because, while the UK's history is also full of racial violence, abuse and degradation, that is another mess. This is my mess. I grew up here in these spaces, I played as a child in these playgrounds; the marks don't wash away with time.

I've thought so often about what my grandparents would have made of my husband. In truth, I think they might have been suspicious or wary before they truly knew him. Although they had warm, productive and close relationships with white people in their work, my sense is that they were keenly aware of the sharp difference between social integration and the educational integration they fought for.

I have always been socially adventurous; I sought connection everywhere I might find it. But as I began to seek a life partner I always hoped that I would end up with someone like my father, for his spirit but also for his Blackness.

In the end, I believe I did find the things I wished for, but in ways I hadn't planned on. I have no doubts about my choice of a life partner, but I have struggled with finding a sense of place for us and our family. The sharp focus on racial division that intensified during the first waves of the pandemic; my grief during the still painful season when George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were murdered; the fight to silence America's racial history in schools - these things churn my insides, the repetitions and reverberations of intolerance. I struggle with how much whiteness we live with, how it might damage me or my children.

Like me, my elder brother, Scott, is in an interracial marriage, and national statistics show such partnerships at an all-time high. Yet Scott, 56, is pessimistic: "As a divided country, we're divided on race more than ever now. A lot of people want to go back to what they say is simpler times but that's a euphemism for when people knew their place."

The author Toni Morrison was so visionary as to exclude whiteness altogether from her cultural conversation. That does not appear to be an option for me, not only because I have an interracial family, but was it ever possible as a child of those who found integration to be the way forward?

As much as I wish it wasn't true, my identity, journey, history, past, present, future are linked to this interconnection - the best and the worst of it.

But this other thing is true too. That in our decidedly American way, we can live in the center of horrifying inequity knowing full well that the world should not be organized in this way.

In our decidedly American way, we can live in the center of horrifying inequity knowing full well that the world should not be organized in this way

The immediate instinct as a parent is to look after your own, keep your children safe and thriving and give them the conditions in which to bloom. My children are not navigating physical violence or poverty but there are dangers we live with every day: the psychological violence of invisibility and insignificance, the world telling them that they don't matter. That violence links them to children who are faced with the more immediate threats and consequences of inequality and segregation; it links me to the generations I came up with and those before me who were excluded directly or subtly. All those ghosts.

My mother counsels me to focus my faith in my children and trust their foundation and my own to forge our path. My father agrees that there is no safe place for my son. This world will find him more and more threatening as he grows, though he is the one under threat. No school can fix the problems we face as Black people in the world, economic, social, judicial, educational - take your pick.

I continue to struggle with what is. I'd give anything to ask my grandparents what they think I should do not only for my son but for all the sons and daughters who are living with less than they deserve. By sending our children to schools within this broken system, am I repeating what I experienced, blindly digging into the same groove without progress?

What I'm grappling with now is not the one-room schoolhouse in the deep south where only Black children were permitted, where they were treated like family, even if there were not enough books to go around. I'm talking about the inverse: where everyone is supposedly invited but only very few have access to opportunity even from the inside.

I have seen the same distressing patterns repeat in generation after generation in my own family. My nephew, Myles, 25, who began his university experience at a predominantly white college in Indiana, says: "There were no direct racial slurs or anything towards me personally but I could tell in some interactions inside and outside of the classroom that many were learning how to coexist with Black people.

"There would be a lot of questions, a lot of curiosity surrounding, 'Why do you do that?' I got tired of the effort I had to put forth to try and fit in. I was just tired of trying to put forth an image and effort in trying to coexist so I just retreated into my own shell."

Myles withdrew after a year and transferred to Howard University, one of our most heralded HBCUs. His two younger sisters followed and both have matriculated there. He explains: "I just felt more comfortable. I realized, OK, yeah, I'm good now, I'm here, I'm free to explore.

"There is something about being in an environment where you can connect with someone on a non-verbal level and just understand versus having to put effort to try and fit in. The less effort you have to put in to actually learn and grow and be in an educational endeavor, the more successful you'll be in finding whatever it is you like or want to do."

Perhaps it's no surprise that all three of my sister's children have chosen and thrived at Howard in the ways that I did at Spelman. My grandparents met and married while at Howard University; the seeds of their doll study and lifetime of collaboration began there.

My 10-year-old son is very happy in his social life. The majority of his friends are kids of color, often interracial, internationally mixed children as he is. They seem to recognize one another and flock together.

A new school year is well under way and the playground looms for me still. It's not my favorite place but I'm pushing myself to sit in the discomfort and spend a little more time there. It is a perfect container for the dynamics of belonging and isolation, conscious or unconscious, race or class related, passive or aggressive. All of this ricochets inside me and I'm thinking about my grandparents again, wishing I could talk with them and ask them for an answer.

History's rhythms repeat, rhyme and skip through the generations in my family ...the way a flat rock skips on a wide lake. I like to imagine my grandmother on the Howard campus, here in Washington DC where I live. I visit the campus often these days and each time I pause hoping to catch a glimpse of her ghost - happy and free, blooming and inspired with the good work to come.

She wanted all children to feel that they belonged, despite the system that tells us only some truly do. No matter how much you are loved or not loved, if the system did not call for you, you could gather up the scraps and do your best.

All four of my grandparents did that - and made sure that we knew there was no other choice than to spin straw into whatever kind of gold we could.

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Being the only one leaves a mark: a Black mother on the long shadow of school segregation

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I scan the demographics in the room like a statistician, curious at how diverse it is. Craning my head to discern how many languages are being spoken around me, how many nations are represented. I wonder about the span of ages, people with disabilities, and race. Always race. It's beautiful.

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https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/feb/09/homeschooling-black-families-parents-us

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‘No more skewed history’: why Black families homeschooling grew fivefold

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In culturally affirming settings, children have blossomed and US parents are finding no reason to return to public schools

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A renowned sociologist who was unable to read or write until the age of 18, and was working part-time in Sainsbury's less than eight years ago, is to become the youngest black professor ever appointed at the University of Cambridge.

Prof Jason Arday, 37, is a highly respected scholar of race, inequality and education, yet at three years old he was diagnosed with global development delay and autism spectrum disorder, and he did not learn to speak until he was 11.

Next month he will take up the role of professor of sociology of education at Cambridge, and he hopes his extraordinary story will inspire others from under-represented backgrounds to progress into higher education.

Arday will be building on his earlier work at the universities of Durham and Glasgow, addressing the paucity of black and minority ethnic people in higher education, their under-representation in academic careers, and the challenge of creating more equitable educational experiences and outcomes for all.

"My work focuses primarily on how we can open doors to more people from disadvantaged backgrounds and truly democratise higher education," he said. "Hopefully being in a place like Cambridge will provide me with the leverage to lead that agenda nationally and globally."

He added: "Talking about it is one thing; doing it is what matters. Cambridge is already making significant changes and has achieved some notable gains in attempting to diversify the landscape, but there is so much more to be done - here and across the sector."

Arday was born and raised in Clapham, south London, and was one of four children. Until the age of 11 he used sign language, and much of his childhood was spent with speech and language therapists. His family were told it was likely he would need lifelong support, but he defied all expectations.

After gaining two GCSEs in PE and textiles, Arday studied for a BTec at college, then completed his first degree in PE and education studies, after which he did two master's qualifications, a PGCE to become a PE teacher, and a PhD at Liverpool John Moores University. He funded his studies by working part-time at Sainsbury's and Boots.

Ten years ago, while studying for his PhD, he wrote a set of personal goals on his mother's bedroom wall. The third on his list read: "One day I will work at Oxford or Cambridge." On 6 March, that dream will become a reality. "As optimistic as I am, there's just no way I could have thought that would have happened," he said. "If I was a betting person, the odds on it were so long. It's just mad."

The message of his story for other young people from under-represented backgrounds is that "everything is possible", Arday said. "I knew I didn't necessarily have huge amounts of talent, but I knew how badly I wanted it and I knew how hard I wanted to work."

It should not, however, be just down to individual endeavour - the system had to change too, he said. "At Cambridge there's been some really, really useful and powerful pockets of good practice. But there's still lots of areas of development, as there is across the sector.

"A big part of the sector's problem is that it does things in a very unsustainable way. It often leans on the labour of black and ethnic minority professionals and academics to do this labour unremunerated and unrecognised."

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Instead, there should be collective responsibility, Arday said, and those working to advance equality, diversity and inclusion should be properly supported and paid. He also highlighted BBC research from 2018 which found that black and ethnic minority academics were being paid less than their white counterparts, with white academics receiving average salaries of £52,000 and black academics £38,000.

"The final thing is recognising how violent some of these spaces can be," he said, "and decision-makers recognising that to be a serious challenge towards the mental health and psychological wellbeing of black and ethnic minority people, particularly women of colour, and more specifically black women in the sector, who to be quite honest are treated differently. I think that is a stain on the sector, and that's something we collectively need to think about, how we do better."

Arday said black women were among the lowest paid in the sector, and out of 24,000 professors in the UK, just over 160 were black and just over 50 were black women. If things were going to change, he said, "it's going to take a sustained commitment by institutions to really think about how they engage with the politics of race".

Prof Bhaskar Vira, the pro-vice-chancellor for education at the University of Cambridge, said: "Jason Arday is an exceptional scholar of race, inequality and education. He will contribute significantly to Cambridge's research in this area and to addressing the under-representation of people from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, especially those from black, Asian, and other minority ethnic communities.

"His experiences highlight the barriers faced by many under-represented groups across higher education and especially at leading universities. Cambridge has a responsibility to do everything it can to address this by creating academic spaces where everyone feels they belong."

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Jason Arday to become youngest ever black professor at Cambridge University

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Arday, 37, a sociologist, aims to inspire others from disadvantaged and under-represented backgrounds

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https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/nov/21/english-class-system-shaped-in-schools

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When Diane Reay, Cambridge University professor of education, started researching her book about working class children's experiences of education, she had no idea just how much inequality she would uncover in state schools today. "The most important thing I found out was that we are still educating different social classes for different functions in society."

She expected to find the English state system was providing roughly the same education for all. "But it doesn't. Even within a comprehensive school, when they're all in the same building, the working classes are still getting less education than the middle classes, just as they had when my dad was at school at the beginning of the 20th century."

Reay's background informs her book and her opinions. The daughter of a coalminer, and the eldest of eight, she grew up on a council estate and received free school meals. She then spent 20 years working as a teacher in London primary schools before moving into academia and ending up at Cambridge.

"My parents had a strong sense that the educational system hadn't been fair to them and they had missed out. I learned as a small child I had to work at least twice as hard as the middle class children to achieve the same result. When I did show ambition - to go to LSE [the London School of Economics and Political Science] to be a political researcher - I was told it wasn't appropriate."

How much has changed? "This government is making inequality in education worse, not better," she says.

Reay carried out more than 500 interviews and identified most with the children who were difficult and out of place: the "fighters", she calls them. "That was the sort of child I was in school."

Now she hopes to open up a national debate about what a socially just education would look like. "There's this incessant babble from the government about social mobility. But the academy and free school movement has made things worse for working class children, with more segregation and polarisation." In spite of free schools and academies receiving more funding per pupil than state comprehensive schools, they typically educate fewer children in receipt of free school meals, she found. "Free schools and academies have a more advantaged intake than the comprehensive schools do."

England does not have an education system that is serious about realising the potential of all children, she argues, with those on free school meals and receiving pupil premium 27% less likely to achieve five or more GCSEs at grades A*-C including English and maths. Four-fifths of children from working-class minority ethnic families are taught in schools with high concentrations of other immigrant or disadvantaged students - the highest proportion in the developed world, according to a report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Half of all free school meal children are educated in just a fifth of all schools.

"There are predominantly middle class comprehensives and predominantly working class and ethnically mixed comprehensives - and despite all the rhetoric around pupil premiums, pupils in the more working class comprehensives get less money per head. They get less qualified teachers. They get higher levels of teacher turnover and more supply teachers. Even if they are in the same schools as middle class children, they are in lower sets and yet again they get less experienced teachers."

All the children she interviewed had a powerful sense of their position in the academic hierarchy. "Right from reception now some children are in sets aged four and they can tell they're only in 'the monkeys' and that's not a very good group to be in. That means they're not very clever." She was shocked by the anxiety displayed by very young children, who, she says, blame themselves if they are put in the lower sets.

Research suggests it is the wealth and inclination of parents, rather than the ability and efforts of the child, that have the most bearing on a child's educational success today. "If you're a working class child, you're starting the race halfway round the track behind the middle class child. Middle class parents do a lot via extra resources and activities."

'There's lots of lining up and standing to attention. It's about disrespecting working class young people.' Photograph: Getty Images

Less affluent children also get a more restrictive educational offer, she discovered. "It wasn't until I talked to young people about their experiences that I realised how different and unequal their educations were. Because the schools that working class children mostly go to are not doing well in the league tables, there's a lot of pressure on their teachers and heads to increase their league table position. That means they focus ruthlessly on reading, writing and arithmetic."

Some children in these schools talked wistfully about hardly ever doing art, drama or dance: "These children come from families where their parents can't afford to pay for them to do those activities out of school. It almost feels criminal. It feels very unfair."

The difference between amounts spent on educating children privately or in the state sector is stark. She cites research from University College London that found £12,200 a year is the average spending on a privately educated primary pupil, compared with £4,800 on a state pupil. For secondary, it's £15,000 compared with £6,200.

"Society has got more unfair, and the gap between the rich and poor is a lot greater than it was even 30 years ago. We've got to move back instead of going further in the direction of austerity, which seems to be punishing the poor."

She believes the government's support for academies and free schools is powerfully ideological. "It's about opening up education to the markets. I found it particularly shocking - and I had to read some quite boring parliamentary reports to get the information - that masses of money has gone into the academy and free school programme, and it's been taken out of the comprehensive school system."

Reay found that free schools receive 60% more funding per pupil than local authority primaries and secondaries, and that £96m originally intended for improving underperforming schools was redistributed to academies.

To make things worse, an analysis of Department for Education data reveals that schools with the highest numbers of pupils on free school meals are facing the deepest funding cuts: in secondary schools with more than 40% of children on free school meals, the average loss per pupil will be £803. That's £326 more than the average for secondary schools as a whole. And primary schools with high numbers of working class pupils are e xpected to lose £578 per pupil.

Another blow being inflicted on working class children is through the way they are treated in some super-strict schools, argues Reay. She says some academies operate on the principle that working class families are chaotic and children need school to impose control. "There's lots of lining up in silence, standing to attention when an adult comes into the room, and mantras. I think it's about disrespecting working class young people and their families.

"There's one academy where the children have to say: I aspire, he aspires, she aspires, we all aspire."

Another issue is widespread setting and streaming. "There's masses of research that shows it doesn't work - that, actually, if you put children in mixed ability groups, the majority make greater progress.

"Plus, research on wellbeing shows that you need to decrease the social distance between people. There's mistrust, wariness and anxiety about people who are different from us. That obviously came out in the Brexit vote. If you put children together in their classroom, they start to learn that what they share is much greater than the differences between them."

After her own schooling at Ashby grammar school, Leicestershire, Reay went to Newcastle University to study politics and economics before getting a job as a primary teacher in Islington. She took her master's in 1985 at the Institute of Education then went back to teaching. She was the main breadwinner in her family, and managed to get funding to do a sociology PhD at South Bank University when she was in her mid-40s.

She took up her first research post at King's College London a few years later and in 2001 was given a chair at the Institute for Policy Studies in Education at London Met. After collaborating on a research project on school inclusivity with academics at Cambridge, she was asked to apply for her current job in the faculty of education in 2004. "If I hadn't worked with colleagues at Cambridge already, I don't think I'd have dared."

As a Cambridge professor, she is also highly critical of Oxbridge's failure to attract students from working class backgrounds and ethnic minorities. But lowering entry requirements is not the solution, she believes. "Focus just at the admissions level isn't really going to change very much. We're never going to have a critical mass of those students who are non-traditional to make a difference."

Instead of blaming non-traditional students for not applying, which she finds hypocritical, she'd like the elite universities to look at their whole culture and ethos. "Maybe they need to ask: how can we make ourselves more attractive to non-traditional applicants? The courses, for example, need to be brought into the 21st century, instead of staying in the 17th."

She was feeling positive that a debate about the diversity of Cambridge University reading lists was opening up - until the Telegraph ran its inaccurate front page story claiming a black student, Lola Olufemi, was forcing the university to drop white authors from its syllabus. "That poor woman was subject to so much negative feedback. The attitude of the Telegraph was: who does she think she is?"

Reay says she felt compelled to write this book because she believes things cannot go on as they are. "There needs to be a sea change in public opinion, for us to say this is too inequitable and unfair. There needs to be a new collective effort to make things fairer."

Miseducation: Inequality, education and the working classes by Diane Reay (£12.99) can be ordered from the Guardian Bookshop

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'Working-class children get less of everything in education - including respect'

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Interview Diane Reay grew up on a council estate, the eldest of eight, and became a Cambridge professor. Now she wants to talk about inequality in education

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https://theconversation.com/more-ethnic-minority-teachers-are-needed-in-uk-schools-but-teaching-can-affect-their-mental-health-and-wellbeing-198201

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There is a major shortage of new teachers in England, and this includes teachers from ethnic minority backgrounds. Research from 2020 found that 46% of schools in England had no Black or ethnic minority teaching staff at all.

But the treatment of ethnic minority staff in schools raises ethical concerns about recruiting them into a workplace which puts significant burdens on their mental health.

The 2022 Teacher Wellbeing Index found that 59% of teachers were considering leaving the profession as a result of its impact on their mental health and wellbeing. But ethnic minority teachers also experience additional pressures.

UK charity Education Support has published a recent report on the mental health and wellbeing of ethnic minority teachers, based on focus groups held with 26 teachers. The report finds that, while ethnic minority teachers experience many of the same pressures as their white colleagues, these are further compounded by racism.

Ethnic minority teachers face racist stereotyping. One senior member of staff quoted in the report recounts that "On my first day as an NQT [newly qualified teacher] I arrived at school in a suit and tie only to be directed to the kitchen by a member of staff rather than the main hall."

A 2016 survey by teachers' union NASUWT found that 31% of Black and ethnic minority teachers had experienced discrimination in their workplace.

'White spaces'

The challenges that ethnic minority teachers experience are also broader than individual acts of racism. Schools can be " white spaces " - social environments where being white is the norm, and where people of colour are viewed as inferior or even threatening outsiders.

A 2019 report commissioned by the National Union of Teachers (now part of the National Education Union) found that teachers from ethnic minority backgrounds were given responsibility over areas such as behaviour rather than extra intellectual roles, and that some Black teachers in particular felt that they were viewed as "aggressive" if they challenged decisions.

But teachers from ethnic minority backgrounds are vital for UK schools. They provide both white and ethnic minority students with important role models. They improve students' educational attainment. When many young Black students feel that the biggest barrier they face in school is their teachers' perceptions of them, the importance of Black teachers is clear.

Lack of teachers

Under-representation of Black teachers in schools across the UK has been disproportionately low for decades. Recent government data shows that despite Black people making up 4.6% of the working age population, only 2.5% of teachers are Black. White people constitute 79.7% of the working age population, but 90.3% of teaching staff and 96% of headteachers.

The government has made commitments to diversify the education workforce. At the same time, though, it has been criticised for minimising the impact of institutional racism on the lives of people in the UK. In the Education Support report, most of the teachers said they would not recommend the profession to family or friends.

However, the Education Support report also found that feeling isolated was a major factor in ethnic minority teachers' wellbeing. So it is no surprise that these teachers are more likely to stay in schools which have more staff from ethnic minority backgrounds, who may provide a supportive network.

Supportive networks of Black ethnic minority and anti-racist teachers can develop more inclusive practices in schools. Examples of this practice include the National Education Union's Anti-Racist Charter, which offers staff help in tackling racism, as does the London Borough of Lambeth's anti-racist framework.

The Halo Code provides schools with guidelines to stop the hair discrimination Black students may experience. Teacher-led efforts to develop an anti-racist curriculum can help all teachers address racism in schools. There are also more localised efforts, such as the campaign led by teacher Aisha Thomas to increase the number of Black teachers in Bristol.

Engaging in anti-racist work is necessary for improving spaces where ethnic minority teachers work - and where future teachers learn. But this work is often in addition to teachers' regular workload, and it can be arduous.

School leaders must reflect on their duty of care, so they are ready to respond when ethnic minority teachers experience racism in school. Active solidarity should not be the responsibility of Black and ethnic minority teachers only, but of all staff.

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More ethnic minority teachers are needed in UK schools - but teaching can affect their mental health and wellbeing

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There is a major shortage of new teachers in England, and this includes teachers from ethnic minority backgrounds. Research from 2020 found that 46% of schools in England had no Black or ethnic minority teaching staff at all.

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https://www.powerengineeringint.com/renewables/strategic-development/more-girls-need-to-study-a-level-maths-or-physics-to-bridge-gender-gap-in-engineering/

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A new research report reveals the staggering increase needed in the number of girls studying maths and/or physics at A-level in the UK in order to reach equal numbers of male and female students studying engineering and technology degrees.
The report was released by the non-profit EngineeringUK and confirms that with the current conversion rate from A-level to undergraduate study, around 150,000 girls would need to study A-levels in maths or physics (or both), in order to reach the same number of male undergraduates.

This is a significant increase of around 115,000 girls compared to current numbers.

The report, which is based on Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data, reveals that 23% of male students who studied A levels in maths or physics, or both, went on to study engineering and technology in higher education however only 8% of female students who took the same subject(s) went on to study engineering and technology degrees.

This translates to a stark gender divide, with only 18% of those studying undergraduate degrees in engineering and technology being female, compared to 57% for all degree subjects combined.
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Of the first-year undergraduates in engineering and technology who had studied both maths and physics at A level, only 22% were female students.

However, when looking at these subjects separately, the figures jump to 50% of female students having taken maths only and 31% physics only.

This highlights the importance of continuing to move away from the preferred prerequisites for these courses being A-levels in both subjects and widening the entry qualifications accepted - in order to address gender imbalances.

Dr Claudia Mollidor, head of research and evaluation at EngineeringUK, said: "The gender disparity within undergraduate degrees in engineering and technology is really concerning.

"Given that A-levels in maths and physics are often a prerequisite for such degrees, we need to do more to make sure these subjects are attractive and accessible to girls at school.
'Scarcity of talent keeps me awake at night' says Annika Viklund of Vattenfall
"Particularly given we know girls perform as well as boys, or even outperform them, in these subjects.

"Cultivating this interest and appetite at an early stage will be crucial, so that when it comes to selecting GCSEs and A levels, girls are informed and inspired to choose subjects that will allow them to progress into engineering and tech careers."

"It's clear the UK will struggle to get on top of its acute skills shortage, if it fails to increase the number of women entering into engineering-related careers. The first step to addressing this is to increase girls' interest and engagement with science and maths at school," added Mollidor.

More encouragingly, for students with A levels in both maths and physics, engineering and technology is the top higher education study subject of choice.

However, there is still a gender imbalance here with 39% of male students choosing the subject vs 29% of female students.

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More girls need to study A-level maths or physics to bridge gender gap in engineering

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A new research report reveals the staggering increase needed in the number of girls studying maths and/or physics at A-level in the UK in order to reach equal numbers of male and female students studying engineering and technology degrees.

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https://theconversation.com/gcses-how-gender-norms-influence-what-young-people-choose-to-study-at-school-171903

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There is a gender divide in the subjects teenagers choose to study. In 2022, 63% of UK GCSE candidates taking full-course Physical Education (PE) for GCSE were male. For Art and Design subjects, though, boys made up only 35% of the students taking the subject.

The subjects students choose to study carry gender meanings. Research on boys and education has shown that Stem subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and PE are understood as masculine.

Research has shown that children associate science with males and masculine traits from an early age. One study found that boys were more likely to express gender stereotypes about scientists.

On the other hand, subjects like English may be considered less masculine because of their perceived irrelevance to traditional "men's work", lack of set answers, and emphasis on emotions.

Subject choice, then, becomes what is known as an "identity resource": something individuals can use to build up their self image. Boys can draw on these identity resources to establish their masculine credibility with their peers.

These stereotypes impact on secondary school students' career aspirations and higher education choices, when self image and the image of an academic subject as masculine or feminine do not match.

Research has shown that when young people rigidly conform to traditional gender roles, they are less likely to fulfil their academic potential because these gender roles affect the subjects they go on to study. In this research, a strong masculine image of maths and science significantly decreased the likelihood of female students choosing a Stem major at university.

Building identities

Religious Education (RE) is an example of one such gendered subject. I conducted research, published in 2014, into boys' views of RE in three secondary schools in the north west of England. I carried out group and individual interviews with 35 boys aged 14-16.

My research showed that for many of the boys, RE wasn't on their agenda because it wasn't an identity resource they wanted to use. I found that there was a link between what boys thought about RE and their ideas about masculinity.

While RE at Key Stage Four is a statutory requirement in England, which means that many schools will require students to take it at GCSE, it is not compulsory to undertake the GCSE examination course. In some schools, it will be offered as an option.

One of the boys I spoke to had chosen to study GCSE Religious Studies, but told me that his male friends had opted for PE and resistant materials. Boys who liked RE, and chose it when it was offered as an option, were bucking the gendered trend.

One told me that he hadn't lost his "reputation" by choosing Religious Studies GCSE instead of PE. The boys I spoke to who had chosen to study Religious Studies for GCSE identified themselves as "the mature people" because of their interest in what they called the "big questions". They differentiated themselves from boys who would just "mess around".

Bucking the trend

Studying subjects like Religious Education allows for discussions of questions of belief and spirituality. The gender roles that lead to boys deciding against studying such subjects may lead to disengagement from subjects that address questions of meaning, purpose and value.

In my experience as a secondary school teacher and researcher, I found that boys will engage with subjects like RE when teachers make the connections clear between RE and real-life issues. The way to find out what these issues are is through talking to young people and learning to listen to their concerns.

Gender stereotypes associated with subject choice affect the life chances of both boys and girls. Recent research shows that both boys and girls who resist restrictive gender roles do better at school.

Schools can take steps to create a more gender-equitable environment. This could involve lessons which debunk myths about subject choice and gender, and which allow both boys and girls to question gender norms - creating a more equal environment which offers them greater possibilities.

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GCSEs: how gender norms influence what young people choose to study at school

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There is a gender divide in the subjects teenagers choose to study. In 2022, 63% of UK GCSE candidates taking full-course Physical Education (PE) for GCSE were male. For Art and Design subjects, though, boys made up only 35% of the students taking the subject. The subjects students choose to study carry gender meanings.

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-64760389

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"This funding is designed to improve education outcomes for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, and eligibility for it needs to be decoupled from free school meals if we are to close the attainment gap," he said.

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London mayor's free meals plan could cost schools £5m - charity

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"This funding is designed to improve education outcomes for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, and eligibility for it needs to be decoupled from free school meals if we are to close the attainment gap," he said.

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https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/feb/22/troy-deeney-calls-for-more-diversity-in-english-schools-curriculum

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The footballer Troy Deeney is launching an impassioned plea for more widespread teaching of black, Asian and minority ethnic experiences by schools in England, to help combat racism and give children "a balanced and inclusive understanding" of Britain.

In an open letter to the education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, Deeney said he had been frustrated by the lack of progress on tackling racism in the two years since the killing of George Floyd in the US, saying that "an eerie quiet" had ended public debate.

The Birmingham City striker said he was still receiving "vile racist abuse on social media and, at times, in public," and with three children in the education system he felt an urgent need for schools to include black, Asian and minority ethnic experiences in their curriculum.

"I have seen more and more how important it is for my children to be able to see themselves represented in what they are being taught, and learn about the contribution and background of people who look like them," Deeney said. "The importance of education at an early age to inform identity and combat racist beliefs and stereotypes cannot be understated."

Deeney's letter follows the success of Marcus Rashford, the England and Manchester United forward, in changing government policy. In 2020 and 2021, Rashford's public interventions and a groundswell of support led to the government reversing its decision not to provide food for children eligible for free school meals during the school holidays in the midst of the Covid pandemic.

Deeney, who signed for Birmingham City this season after playing almost 400 games for Watford, is launching an online petition. He has commissioned research by the polling company YouGov into teachers' attitudes to rebut claims that the national curriculum in England already contains ample black and minority ethnic representation.

The survey of 1,000 secondary and primary school teachers, carried out this month, found that only 12% felt empowered to teach "optional" black-related topics such as colonialism, migration and identity ahead of competing optional topics, while 75% said they were not aware that resources to teach cultural diversity across the curriculum were available.

It found that 54% of teachers believed the school system or national curriculum has a racial bias, rising to 93% among minority ethnic teachers.

"My only experience of black history or black culture was through the food or music I experienced at home, whilst at school I felt detached. Not only was I not taught about positive role models who looked like me, I was even told by one teacher that I'd be dead by the time I was 25," Deeney said.

He was excluded from school at the age of 15 and left without any qualifications. Later, as a professional footballer, he studied and passed GCSEs in English, maths and science.

"As my mum always says to me, you can't understand where you're going if you don't understand where you've come from. Whether it's too late for my generation, we need to lay a pathway for longer-lasting change for our kids as I believe the current system is failing children from ethnic minorities," Deeney said.

Denney's call was backed by Lavinya Stennett, founder of The Black Curriculum which promotes a wider range of Black content to be taught in schools. "The students and the teachers are asking for our work, and it's the time to listen and mandate," Stennett said.

In response, a Department for Education spokesperson said the current curriculum offers pupils the opportunity to study significant figures from black and ethnic minority backgrounds and the contributions they have made to the nation.

"Schools play a crucial role in helping young people understand the world around them and their place within it. We continue to be informed by the work of committed individuals and groups when it comes to supporting the teaching of black and minority ethnic history," the spokesperson said.

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Troy Deeney calls for more diversity in English schools' curriculum

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The footballer Troy Deeney is launching an impassioned plea for more widespread teaching of black, Asian and minority ethnic experiences by schools in England, to help combat racism and give children "a balanced and inclusive understanding" of Britain.

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https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jul/13/black-british-history-school-curriculum-england

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In Britain, one focus of the Black Lives Matter movement has been how we tell the history of the country. Beyond the protests about statues, young people have been campaigning against changes to the national curriculum in England made in 2014.

When the then education secretary, Michael Gove, announced he wanted to refocus the teaching of history in schools to "celebrate the distinguished role of these islands in the history of the world", he removed the curriculum's explicit focus on racial and ethnic diversity, particularly within Britain.

Though some of his more extreme ideas were dropped after opposition from teachers and academics, his changes meant the teaching of black history became optional.

This has led to black people being almost entirely written out of the version of British history taught in schools, says Lavinya Stennett, the founder of the Black Curriculum, an education social enterprise that delivers black British history in schools.

GCSE exam data collated by the Guardian shows that although schools are permitted to teach black history, as well as the history of people outside Europe and the US, few of them do.

Up to 11% of GCSE students are studying modules that refer to black people's contribution to Britain. And less than one in 10 are studying a module with a focus on empire, despite this being a significant feature of the last 400 years of British history.

This finding is backed by a survey of 50,000 people that explores the history participants learned at school.

Of the 59 GCSE history modules available from the three biggest exam boards, Edexcel, AQA and OCR, 12 explicitly mention black history. Only five mention the history of black people in Britain, the rest are about black people in the US, other countries or the transatlantic slave trade.

Of the five that cover black history in Britain, three include migration, one deals with empire in the 17th and 18th century, and one mentions race relations in postwar Britain in a thematic study of power over an 850-year period.

This means up to 11% (approx 28,412) of GCSE students in 2019 were studying modules that made any reference to the contribution of black people in British history.

No modules in the GCSE syllabus for the most popular exam board, Edexcel, mention black people in Britain.

Yet there have been black people in Britain since at least the Romans arrived as well as black communities of sorts since the 1500s, as David Olusoga chronicles in his book Black and British. They include a trumpeter in Henry VIII's court who wrote to the king asking for a pay rise, seamen at the battle of Trafalgar and soldiers fighting for Britain in both world wars.

And of course white British people have been in Africa: running the transatlantic slave trade to the Caribbean and the US and occupying the likes of modern-day Nigeria and Kenya to Egypt and South Africa.

A spokesperson for Edexcel's parent company Pearson said they are planning to introduce a module about migration in Britain that will cover black British history, and that work on this will be accelerated in light of recent events. They said that diversity and inclusiveness"is an absolute priority for us and we've worked hard to ensure that our history GCSE qualification covers a range of cultures and countries ... We always encourage feedback and take action on it where possible".

What are the effects of this missing history?

The consequences of this missing history, in Stennett's words, is that many people do not know why Britain is the way it is today. "People are not aware of the contributions that were made [by black people] to Britain. Also, they don't understand their classmates or the people around them," she says.

This omission harms black Britons, Stennett says. "The whole basis of the Windrush scandal was that 'these people don't belong here', that their citizenship could be revoked. It makes me feel like we don't belong, like we've never made any contribution," she says. "That is not the truth."

Everyday life for black Britons is permeated by this history, according to Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson, the 19-year-old co-creator of the Impact of Omission, including how microaggressions play out.

"When black people say, 'Please can you not touch my hair,' people think it's about invading personal space. And it is to an extent, but you also have this history in this country about how black people were put into zoos and petted like animals," she says. Human zoos including Somali people among others continued in Britain until the 20th century.

"People think you are overreacting when you're like, 'Can you please not do that.' People think it's PC culture. But when you do something like that it recalls a deeply painful and traumatic history that black people have to reckon with every single day.

"You can walk through the world, touching people's hair because you think it looks fluffy but it's a completely dehumanising thing that has its roots in human zoos. That's the impact of omission, that people can walk around not thinking about the history of their actions."

Nell Bevan, an 18-year-old who co-created the Impact of Omission with Jikiemi-Pearson, says: "I remember hearing adults say that you learn history so you can learn the mistakes that we used to make. But how can you avoid mistakes that you are not taught about?"

How do we get beyond the 'slave' and 'victim' narratives?

When black people feature in GCSE history lessons it is often in the context of the slave trade. Without the inclusion of other aspects of black history and a broader understanding of empire, the focus on slavery, though crucial, can reinforce narratives of black people as victims.

So it is also important, according to Clare Broomfield, the head of history at Villiers high school in Southall, Middlesex, for pupils to learn about different cultures before colonisation. "Studying the Mughal empire or the Benin kingdom moves away from the narrative that people of colour and black people are seen only as slaves or victims," she says.

The data shows that a third of GCSE students studied the modules centred on non-European or American cultures. Of that third, 95% were studying one of two modules on China under Mao. Three other modules focus on non-European/American culture outside the context of an invasion: the Mughal Empire 1526-1707; South Africa 1960-94: the People and the State; and Conflict in the Middle East 1945-95. Less than 2% (4,228) of all students studied these topics at GCSE. For the purposes of this comparison we have classified Russian history as European history.

What happened to the empire?

It's not just black history that is missing. Despite the Conservative party's enthusiasm for "imperial heroes", there is very little coverage of the empire in GCSE history lessons.

Although British historymakes up the vast majority of what pupils study at GCSE history, modules focusing on empire make up a small proportion of that.

Allowing that students study four modules, we calculated that only 9% (about 23,676 pupils) have studied modules that make significant reference to the British empire over the course of their two-year GCSE.

That is fewer than one in 10 learning about one of the most significant periods in British history over the past four centuries.

Of the eight modules that cover the British empire: only one tackles the subject directly, OCR's the Impact of Empire on Britain 1688-c.1730. Three reference empire in relation to migration in Britain; one covers it in a general 1,200-year overview of warfare; and two reference empire in short period studies of the UK: Britain in Peace and War 1900-18, and Restoration England 1660-85.

In the syllabus for the most popular exam board, Edexcel, only one module, British America 1713-83: Empire and Revolution, makes a significant reference to the British empire. However, it is entirely focused on British colonisation of the US. A passing reference is made to Sir Walter Raleigh's failed colonisation of Virginia in the module Early Elizabethan England 1558-88.

In contrast, there are 21 modules on British history that make little to no reference to the empire.

Can 'Hitler and the Henrys' be taught differently?

Peter Mandler, a leading historian based at Cambridge University, characterised the traditional focus of British history as " Hitler and Henr ys ", making reference to the focus on the Nazis and the Tudors.

Yet even within these "traditional" topics, Broomfield says a wide range of perspectives can be drawn out. "The Tudors and 1066 can be taught in a way that includes the non-white or immigrant people who participated in them, eg the black Tudors, the Jewish immigrants who came with William the Conqueror or Indian Lascar sailors," she says.

However, schools face two significant obstacles to reform:a shortage of money and a lack of time among teachers.

Broomfield says it is difficult to buy textbooks on a small departmental budget: "Textbooks are expensive. My budget is not huge - even for the OCR GCSE migration course you need four textbooks at £12-£13 each. And if you are teaching more than 100 pupils, that soon adds up."

Another problem is teachers' lack of knowledge, she says. "It's maybe something that you have never studied before yourself, so, particularly if you've taught about life in Nazi Germany for the last 25 years, you're not going to want to change that."

But Broomfield urges teachers to instead see it as a way for pupils to connect history to the world around them, and to learn about new topics themselves.

"From a teacher perspective, I have found it endlessly fascinating to discover all these new and exciting stories," she says. "If we don't teach this history, we lose that knowledge and understanding of how rich and culturally diverse our society has been since the Romans."

Additionally, a series of changes to the education system means the national curriculum is taught fully only in local authority-run state schools - but not in academies, free schools or private institutions.

Stennett says when history is taught well, it has a positive influence on BAME pupils. "People feel seen where they were not seen before," she adds. "It gives them a sense of identity and belonging in the classroom."

According to Olusoga, the erasure of black history in Britain is an intentional feature of racism that he traces to Enoch Powell, whose search for a pre-colonial white England discards 400 years of British history and skips back to before the Elizabethans.

Whatever the intention - the combination of curriculum setting by politicians, modules offered by exam boards and schools' take-up of those modules means that for today's students the erasure of black people's centuries-long contribution to Britain remains.

When asked whether the Department for Education was concerned about the low numbers studying either black history or the British empire, a spokesperson said: "The curriculum in our schools is already incredibly diverse and offers pupils access to different black history topics across all key stages, teaching children about significant figures from black and ethnic minority backgrounds to help them learn about our shared history with countries from across the world."

A letter to Stennett from Nick Gibb, the minister for school standards, seen by the Guardian, reiterates areas where it is possible to study black history in the current history curriculum but rejects a request by the Black Curriculum to make it mandatory.
Free black history wallchart Starting on Saturday 11 Notes on the data July, the Guardian is publishing a free wallchart series giving a timeline of black history - from the first African Roman emperor in AD193, to the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020. In a total of six parts, it will show how the history of black people has impacted the world, and will help all of us understand how we got where we are today.
Specific data about what history students learn at key stage 3 (aged 11-14) or in primary schools is not available. Within the curriculum laid out here for England's key stage 3, schools are allowed to teach what they want. Fewer than half of students doing GCSEs in England, 45%, take history. But it is only at this stage that we can get information on the topics studied. Scottish and Northern Irish exam boards were unable to provide details about the modules taken at GCSE/national 5 level.

GCSE specifications: AQA, Edexcel, OCR history A and OCR history B
Topics

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Black British history: the row over the school curriculum in England

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In Britain, one focus of the Black Lives Matter movement has been how we tell the history of the country. Beyond the protests about statues, young people have been campaigning against changes to the national curriculum in England made in 2014.

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https://mancunion.com/2023/02/27/why-do-former-private-school-pupils-dominate-university-sports/

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Educational Achievement: Social Class and Parental Attitudes

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Educational Policy and Social Class Inequality

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Relationships and Processes within Schools: Social Class and Anti-School Subcultures

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Educational Achievement & Linguistic Differences

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Relationships & Processes within Schools - Institutional Racism in Schools | A Level Sociology

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Education: Relationships and Processes within Schools - the Ethnocentric Curriculum

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Relationships & Processes within Schools - Ethnicity & Subcultures | A Level Sociology

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Gender Differences in Education - The Rise of Feminism | A Level Sociology

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Gender Differences in Education - Impacts of Educational Policy | A Level Sociology

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Education: Gender and Teacher Expectations

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Almost a third of children have heard racist comments at school, according to research by an anti-bullying campaign that suggests they are most likely to have experienced racism by about the age of 13.

A poll of 1,000 six to 15-year-olds found that while, overall, about 32% children had heard someone be racist at school, this figure rose to more than half - 52% - among 13-year-olds.

The findings came as children across the UK are settling back into an uncertain school year following an extended absence as a result of months of closures during the coronavirus outbreak. More than a third - 33% - said they were more worried than usual about returning to class.

The research aims to shed light on the true extent of racism and bullying in schools, and to raise awareness among both pupils and their parents. It was commissioned by The Diana Award, a youth charity named for the former Princess of Wales,and the Nationwide building society.

The charity will hold a "big anti-bullying assembly" to be shown in primary school classrooms and homes on 28 September, which will involve celebrities including England defender Tyrone Mings and football manager Gareth Southgate.

Mings said: "I feel like everybody's differences should be celebrated, there's no shame or harm in being different so that's why I'm putting my hand up to commit to putting an end to bullying."

The survey found that children living in more diverse areas were far more likely to have heard racism, ranging from four in 10 of those living in London, making it the most likely area, to about one in seven of those living in Northern Ireland, the area where children were least likely to have heard racism.

The results were not disaggregated according to the ethnic background of respondents. However, the experience of one child quoted in the report lends credence to the suspicion that children with ethnic minority heritage are more likely to hear racism.

Rose Agnew, aged 14, from Warwick, said: "I've experienced a lot of racial attacks, whether it's covertly or overtly. The more covert things being girls making fun of my hair or even some of the foods I would bring in at break."

In spite of widespread experiences of racism in schools - and the poll finding that three quarters of parents said they believed racism was a problem online - many parents are still not speaking to their children about racism, the research showed. Although the Black Lives Matter protests in June recently brought racism to the fore, about four in 10 parents surveyed admitted they had not spoken to their children about racism recently.

Bullying more generally remains a significant problem for schoolchildren, the research found, with nearly half - 46% - saying they had been bullied. Of those, more than three quarters said it had left them feeling anxious; almost six in 10 said it had made them skip school or not want to go; about the same proportion said it had resulted in them losing friends or switching friendship groups, and more than four in 10 said it had made them avoid social events.

Nearly one in seven affected children said they had changed schools or switched to homeschooling as a result of bullying. Almost one in 10 said bullying had made them feel suicidal.

The research, carried out by independent third-party research supplier Censuswide, polled 1,000 randomly selected six to 15-year-olds, and a further 1,000 randomly selected parents of six to 15-year-olds.

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One-third of children in UK 'have heard racist comments at school'

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Almost a third of children have heard racist comments at school, according to research by an anti-bullying campaign that suggests they are most likely to have experienced racism by about the age of 13.