00:00:10:04 - 00:00:38:02 Unknown Hi, I'm Cat Place head teacher, Jubilee Park Primary School in Newport. And I'm going to share with you our journey towards an anti-racist curriculum. In May 2020, during the unprecedented global pandemic, the death of George Floyd and the worldwide protests movement against police brutality and racism captured the thoughts of many staff. This tragedy caused us to reflect upon our own personal experiences, our unconscious and conscious bias and how privileged we are in our role as educators. 00:00:38:02 - 00:01:04:05 Unknown Individual members of staff started on a journey of education for themselves, even to be informed and to share this with others. And as a result, we started our journey to becoming an anti-racist school. Our school community has grown incredibly over the last five years since we opened in September 2017. We have grown from 116 pupils and 16 staff to 374 pupils and over 50 members of staff. 00:01:05:01 - 00:01:35:04 Unknown For me, it is vital that we ensure all staff are aware of the representation within our school community. For example, at Jubilee Park, 78% of our school population are white British. We have 25 ethnic categories represented within our school community. Our largest ethnic groups are Pakistani, Indian and White, Asian and White and Black Caribbean. 80 children are not White British, which is the equivalent to nearly three classes, and 28 children have English as an additional language. 00:01:35:04 - 00:02:01:08 Unknown It is crucially important we recognise our children's ethnicity, their experiences, and particularly those who are educated outside of the Welsh education system. So where does it start? For me, it starts with us. It starts with our core values, which are at the heart of our school and drive our moral purpose. As a predominantly white staff, we agreed we needed to develop our own understanding of racism, anti-racism, equality and diversity. 00:02:02:02 - 00:02:26:08 Unknown We believe that to truly be a learning organisation with our core values at the heart of what we do, we needed to learn and be learned. This starts with relationships. Trust has been vital. We have had really honest conversations about being nervous, about saying the wrong thing, not wanting to upset each other. We've been reflective. We felt guilty, we've challenged others and we've needed to go through this hard work to be in the place that we are now. 00:02:27:10 - 00:02:51:04 Unknown We recognise it is important that each individual within a school understands prejudice and discrimination. As a school, all staff engage in reading to understand both processes and psychological theories of prejudice and discrimination. We felt it was crucial to be informed as practitioners and develop an understanding rather than rush in to consider classroom level activities which could quickly become ill informed and inconsistent. 00:02:52:06 - 00:03:13:11 Unknown We recognise as a school that there's a stark need for all staff to educate and challenge their own understanding of prejudice and discrimination before they could seek to educate others. One of the examples that we have is dedicated reading and research. This happens on a fortnightly basis, and we've used articles focusing on anti-racist curriculum to challenge personal thoughts and views. 00:03:13:11 - 00:03:43:06 Unknown We've asked our staff questions such as What do you believe you as an educator need to do to contribute and develop our anti-racist practice at Jubilee Park? Where does your learning and work need to go? This prompted staff to undertake their own personal reading term. Professor Charlotte Williams in her report to Welsh Government in March 2021, highlighted the need for us to engage with models of anti-racist practice and be part of the Welsh Government's strategy to achieve a Wales that is anti-racist by 2030. 00:03:44:07 - 00:04:08:04 Unknown In regular professional and development sessions we've looked at saying words such as positionality and intersectionality, looked at that complex relationship between social identities and systems of power and oppression. We've looked at what decolonising the curriculum means for us and what does it actually look like In reality, We've had people coming in to share professional in development sessions with us. 00:04:08:04 - 00:04:36:06 Unknown For example, show racism, the red card. We've looked at articles and texts. We've watched the school that tried to end racism. We all, as a staff read Empire Lands, and all of this is built together to ensure that we build that trust and understanding. We've been challenging ourselves using our vision principles to guide all of our actions. Our anti-racist development is a whole school approach, but as such, it has to start with leaders. 00:04:36:12 - 00:05:02:04 Unknown Our leadership team and governing body are at the heart of our work. We have a leader who has a designated role to support our anti-racist development. Governors have training and our leaders model behaviours and expectations on a daily basis. We focus on the consistency of reporting racist incidents. We ensure the importance of our anti-racist journey is recognised through key strategic documents such as our school improvement plan, our staff handbook, and our prospectus. 00:05:02:13 - 00:05:28:00 Unknown We ensure that there is clarity in our communication and in our actions. In terms of our school environment, we recognise that all children learn from everything around them; the people, the environment, the atmosphere, the routine. And we need to ensure we are unbiased and provide equality of experiences and opportunities. Representation really matters. We need to ensure our resources reflect our community and society at large. 00:05:28:00 - 00:05:52:04 Unknown We conduct regular environment learning walks and can consider what our environment says about our school. We have invested in a large number of techs to ensure that books related to diversity are prominent within the school and that the global majority is visible. This is an ongoing development of our school, and it's so important to never underestimate meet the impact of your school environment. 00:05:52:04 - 00:06:14:10 Unknown In terms of our curriculum, our curriculum design is guided by our school vision, and it enables all of our learners to progress towards the four purposes. In order to develop an anti-racist curriculum, it is important to support and encourage teachers to consider their themes through the lens of diversity and cynefin. Over the last five years, we've developed our own Thrive curriculum, which is a bespoke curriculum for our school. 00:06:15:00 - 00:06:32:02 Unknown This has been based on an interactive process and based upon years of research, knowing our growing school community, reflecting on what has worked and what has had the greatest impact upon learning. It has grown piece by piece and this has been hard work. But I truly believe schools need to go through this. 00:06:32:02 - 00:06:58:11 Unknown For us as a school, the staff at Jubilee Park have taken such agency and developed our THRIVE curriculum. Our curriculum design supports the development of a culture for learning, an environment for learning, pedagogy and assessment to ensure that all children thrive in a transforming world and make progress towards realising the four purposes. Our staff now look through the lens of diversity and equality to challenge teachers thinking of how they design their themes. 00:06:58:15 - 00:07:34:03 Unknown When developing curriculum, design, lesson content and delivery, teachers carefully consider whether they are presenting a stereotypical view of ethnic and national cultural traditions. Although this could be well-intentioned, we need to be mindful that we can reinforce or sometimes create racial prejudice. As a school, we are focused on creating a common understanding in order to build an authentic view of people as they really are. This is essential in avoiding a presumed difference or othering and truly realising cynefin. Our anti-racist curriculum journey is not just because of one of our four purposes is to develop ethical, informed citisens of Wales and the world, but that we truly believe it is a necessity for our school community. 00:07:34:12 - 00:08:02:03 Unknown This is an ongoing learning journey. As a school, we've previously engaged in many multicultural and curricular opportunities for children to have the correct knowledge about racial groups and the need to prevent racism. However, many of these lessons were one off and involve the use of external resources being brought into the classroom. They did not take into account our individual school context and they were aimed at improving intergroup understanding and positive attitudes rather than challenging thoughts and ideologies. 00:08:02:13 - 00:08:30:08 Unknown There were many merits and educational value to this approach. However, often members of the global majority were portrayed in negative ways or as outsiders who moved to Wales. Many discussions related to Black history resulted in the teaching of racism became stereotypical, and this was part of our journey. However, it became clear that our approach needed to change. On the screen are examples of themes, questions and resources we've used to encourage children to think about our community and the wider world. 00:08:30:14 - 00:08:56:08 Unknown We regularly consider who is in our local community and how we can work together to develop that understanding. Crucially, staff complete their own work first, they have to do the learning. This is hard work, but crucial in developing an anti-racist curriculum, developing their own understanding, and then taking action. And for us, it goes back to our Jubilee Park values, making sure that our children know that honesty, kindness and respect are at the heart of our work. 00:08:56:13 - 00:09:21:09 Unknown You probably are familiar with the word cynefin. It's a Welsh word that translates as place or habitat. However, it can also be used to describe the elements of our situation and personal history, influence our thoughts and decisions in ways we don't understand. For me, it's about that feeling of belonging. It is essential that school leaders and staff are well informed and encouraged to think critically and examine themselves as individuals through highly effective professional learning. 00:09:22:02 - 00:09:38:10 Unknown It is the responsibility of educators to be the lever for change that we can create an anti-racist Wales by 2030. It is my purpose and passion to make a difference and to ignite that fire in others so our world can be a better place. We have such a privilege as leaders in education. We need to keep learning and be that change. 00:09:40:05 - 00:09:52:10 Unknown I'm just going to end with questions for you to consider. And if you'd like any further information, please get in touch or have a look at the range of resources and events available via Dapo. Gyampo.