RACISM SIGNIFICANT ISSUE IN OUR SCHOOLS SAY TEACHERS

'The numbers at the core of such futile debates are spat at us every year, and yet the solutions remain few and far between. How many times must we be reminded that black Caribbean and dual heritage children are excluded from schools at rates three times greater than that for white children? How many headlines screaming that there are twice as many black men in prison in the UK than in universities must be printed and coolly pondered upon on low listenership radio slots? The conversations seemingly persist and yet the gap between black Caribbean achievement and the national average at GCSE has narrowed by eight percentage points in four years. Below is a shocking survey conducted by Teachers TV that confirms racism is alive and well in UK schools.' Lee Jasper

Over half of the education workforce (55.1%) are aware of racist bullying in their school, with over 1 in 10 (12.7%) being aware of racism against teachers, according to a new poll of Teachers TV registered users.The poll, held to coincide with anti-racism week on Teachers TV (the digital channel for those working in education), found that almost two thirds of the educationworkforce (63.8%) agree that racism is an issue in schools. Half (56.3%) felt that racism is becoming increasingly linked to religious intolerance. Despite this, two thirds (68.3%) of those questioned said their school does not have a strategy or programme to help combat racist bullying.

More training and understanding

A third of teachers (34.7%) felt that more professional development would help them respond to an incidence of racism, while a further third (33.5%) felt that understanding how other schools deal with racism would help. Commenting on the results, Andrew Bethell, Chief Executive
of Teachers TV, said:

The education workforce recognise racism as significant issue in schools and have expressed a desire for further training and knowledge of how other schools deal
with racism. Teachers TV produces a variety of programming aimed at providing teachers with the tools to deal with racism in their schools, which the poll shows is something
that they really want.

Anti-racism projects in schools: Schools have put a variety of projects and strategies into practice. These include friendship weekends, bi-annual cultural diversity days, zero tolerance schemes, and Show Racism the Red Card schemes. The education workforce seems to be relatively happy with the way that their schools have dealt with racist bullying that affects pupils. However, of the small number who had experienced bullying themselves, most felt that schools had handled the incidents badly. Many felt that the schools had not dealt with it appropriately with one teacher stating 'staff are afraid to tackle students on this.'

Please see below for an outline of the programming coming out in anti-racism week on Teachers TV.