Racism and Racist Incidents subgroup meeting minutes: October 2025

Attendees and apologies

Present

Scottish Government Health and Wellbeing Unit (Chair)

Independent Racism Consultant

Education Scotland

Respectme

Association of Directors of Education in Scotland (ADES)

Youthlink 

Central Scotland Regional Equality Council (CSREC)

University of the West of Scotland (UWS)

Educational Institution of Scotland (EIS)

 

Apologies

Scottish Council of Independent Schools (SCIS)

Intercultural Youth Scotland (IYS)

Rise Forth Valley

National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT)

Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Organisations (CEMVO) Scotland

Items and actions

Welcome and announcements

The Chair welcomed members and noted apologies. The Chair reminded the group of the responsibilities of co-working.

 

Note of previous meeting

The draft note of the September meeting was shared with the workstream last week. There were no comments on the draft note. Members confirmed that they were content for the note to be published.

 

Whole School Approach (WSA)

The Chair brought the group's attention to the final draft of the WSA. A small group of members had met to reduce the length of the previous draft. The shortedned version had been shared with the workstream via correspondence to allow for final comments to be actioned.

The Chair noted comments recieved from members who sent their apologies to the meeting.

The group discussed any final reflections:

• addition of (SAMEE) to resources for school staff who experience racism
• update the link to Education Scotland, Respectme, and Youth Link Hate Crime resource
• inclusion of advice about posters and visual displays has risk of appearing tokenistic. Guidance on whole school culture and ethos encourages schools to think about the best way to promote culture and ethos for their own contexts
• spelling error ntoed
• ensure link to section on difference between racism and bullying in published Addressing Racism and Racist Incidents guidance

Working group members confirmed that they are content for the WSA to proceed toward publication. The Chair formally thanked the working group and the Secretariat for their hard work and contributions throughout.

 

 

Next steps

The WSA will go through internal publication processes. Members will be notified in the new year of publication plans.

The Chair noted that it is possible that some minor changes may be made as part of due diligence. The group will be notified if this is necessary.

The Secretariat and Education Scotland have been considering online supports and professional learning to support the publication of the WSA. Education Scotland provided an update on plans to develop these resources.

Comments from members included:

• consideration of seminars which focus on specific sections of the guidance in more detail
• importance of links to other Anti-Racism in Education Programme (AREP) workstreams
• importance of engagement with parents and families

 

Any other business

The Chair reiterated thanks to workstream members for support and collaboration.