This project, funded by the 2021–2022 British Curriculum Forum (BCF) Curriculum Investigation Grant, involved finding ways to celebrate diversity within a Welsh school and its school curriculum. It investigated whether ongoing curriculum change could enhance pupils’ experience, empathy and understanding as well as challenge stereotypes, with the ultimate aim of reducing racist incidents as a result. The project also sought to discover whether entrenched attitudes to teaching traditional curricula could be mobilised and if a diverse curriculum could engage pupils more than a traditional approach through relevance and positive culture.

The school was awarded the first Betty Campbell MBE award for promoting the contributions and perspectives of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities. They were recognised for their work on anti-racism, including the work funded by the BCF Curriculum Investigation Grant. Find out more here.

Summary

Our project involved finding ways to celebrate diversity within our school and school curriculum, and aimed to reduce racist incidents as a result of this change. Diversity, as a cross-cutting theme of the new Curriculum for Wales, is summarised as: ‘recognising and celebrating the diverse nature of social groups and communities and ensuring that the curriculum reflects that diversity and is responsive to the experiences of those groups and communities’ (Welsh Government, 2021). 

We are a significantly White school – which could be considered surprising as we are a school in the third largest city in Wales. The proportion of Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME) pupils in year 11 in 2020, for example, was nine per cent. In comparison, 34.4 per cent of pupils in Cardiff are BAME (Education Wales, 2020). Our neighbouring high school is contrastingly more ethnically diverse with 55 per cent of pupils identifying as White British. These contextual statistics demonstrate the need for enhanced cultural awareness, experiences and curriculum opportunities at our school; our pupils have fewer opportunities to meet, work and mix with BAME pupils and their families. We wanted to investigate if, through this project and ongoing curriculum change, we could enhance pupils’ experience, empathy and understanding as well as challenge stereotypes. 

The actions included: 

• BAME learner group discussions 
• BAME parent/carer interviews 
• staff interviews 
• a school visit to a more diverse pupil and staff demographic (Mulberry Academy Shoreditch) 
• pilot projects with external partners such as Arts Council Wales and Connecting Classrooms 
• baseline audit of the pastoral and academic curricula at key stage 3 
• high-profile ‘Celebrating Diversity’ conference with keynote speaker and a choice of 14 workshops 
• pupil-led weekly diversity discussion and celebration club 
• diversity-themed TeachMeets with contributions from each Area of Learning and Experience (AoLE)
• whole-school celebrating diversity calendar with different themes every half-term and corresponding resources, activities, competitions, exhibitions, and reward trips 
• participation in local, regional and national events and competitions. 

Through our baseline research, whole-school approach and ongoing evaluation, we also wanted to discover if entrenched attitudes to teaching traditional curricula could be mobilised and if a diverse curriculum could engage pupils more than a traditional approach through relevance and positive culture. We thought that this research would be invaluable, not only for those schools in Wales that are re-designing their curricula in line with the four purposes of the Curriculum for Wales, but also for institutions outside Wales that also understand that schools should prepare young people to be global, ethical citizens of the future. We used the research question: Can a whole-school curriculum focus on celebrating diversity reduce the volume of racist incidents? 

Although the volume of racist incidents did not seemingly reduce but increase, we are confident that this increase is temporary, and could be considered a positive step forward which reflects pupil confidence in reporting racist incidents and staff confidence in addressing them. As Challenge it, report it, stop it states: ‘The issue of under-reporting remains a persistent concern, with victims still reluctant to report encounters of hate to the police’ (UK Government, 2012). 

In addition, Show Racism the Red Card (SRtRC, 2020) states: 

‘In workshops facilitated by SRtRC, 85% of pupils stated that they had experienced racism in school or in the community. Many of these pupils disclosed that they did not feel confident to tell their teachers of their experience, as they felt teachers did not do enough to address previous incidents.’ 

Through our research and reflection, we will have to accept that the initial increase of incidents being reported is a troubling, but possibly necessary, step in the right direction.