Creating anti-racist school communities: Floyd three years on

Angelina Idun, Director of Education at SSAT, reflects on the importance of continuing to actively address inequalities in our school communities.

I’m sure you won’t need reminding that it will be three years since the murder of George Floyd on Thursday 25 May.

• How did you react when you heard the news or watched the video?
• What did the global Black Lives Matter movement that gathered momentum ignite in you?
• What actions did you commit to as a result of what happened that day?
• To what extent have you honoured commitments and pledges made and what has changed as a result?

Baroness Doreen Lawrence, marking the 30th anniversary of the brutal killing of her teenage son Stephen on April 22 acknowledged the legacy that his death has inspired and how it has moved us closer to a more equitable society. She also said:

“Yet, we must also acknowledge the work still to be done. Inequality persists, and our mission to create a world free from discrimination continues.”

I’ve been reflecting on Stephen’s murder and what his loved ones have gone through because of the failings of a metropolitan police force branded institutionally racist by the 1999 Macpherson report. The fact that 24 years later a report in March 2023 published the same findings and also highlighted misogyny and homophobia, is appalling. This, and arriving at a three-year milestone, made me want to put pen to paper and write something new to reenergise us all as we continue on the mission that Baroness Lawrence describes. Instead, I have decided to share with you a piece that I wrote in July 2020.

You may have read this piece before. I’d encourage you to read it again. What I wrote that summer is as relevant now as it was then.

Conversations with teachers, students and leaders when moderating for the RACE Charter Mark Award or when undertaking equalities or race equalities audits are powerful and inspiring. Discussion, strategy and action being taken in schools as a result of a focus on race equality and diversity, demonstrates how transformational prioritising and engaging the whole school community in the anti-racist agenda can be. The words quoted from Doreen Lawrence’s will ring true with all of us. However far we have our school communities have come on their journey to achieving race equality there is still a distance to go.