Racism and Racist Incidents subgroup meeting minutes: September 2025

Attendees and apologies

Present

Independent Racism Consultant (Chair)

Scottish Council of Indepent Schools (SCIS)

University of the West of Scotland (UWS)

Coalition of Racial Equality and Rights (CRER)

Intercultural Youth Scotland (IYS)

Association of Directors of Education (ADES)

Connect

Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Organisations (CEMVO) Scotland

Scottish Government Equalities in Education Team

Scottish Government Health and Wellbeing Team

Apologies

RespectMe

Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS)

Education Scotland

Central Scotland Regional Equality Council (CSREC)

National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT)

Items and actions

Welcome and announcements

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

Note of previous meeting

The draft note from the previous meeting was circulated to the working group. One change had been made. ADES requested that the minute be updated to reflect that EIS and ADES noted the guidance needs to be reduced in length.

Action: Secretariat to update the meeting note ahead of publication on Scottish Government website.

Update on critical friends engagement and summary document

Secretariat provided an update on the critical friend engagement and the feedback received. Feedback had shown that content of document is good, but it is too long. Several pieces of feedback had requested an executive summary or summary document. The Secretariat had drafted a summary document for the group's consideration.

The group considered the summary document. Key points included:

• the group liked the idea of a summary document, but felt that the draft was too long
• concerns that summary document would be used instead of the main guidance
• group felt that a summary document might be better for use by children and young people, and parents

Action: Secretariat to convene small group meeting of Scottish Government, ADES, Education Scotland, EIS and UWS representatives to carry out final edit of the Whole School Approach (WSA).

Action: Scottish Government to take forward development of summary document with view to accessibility for children, young people and families following WSA.

Update on engaging with young people (IYS)

IYS provided feedback on engagement which had been carried out with groups of young people between the ages of 12 and 24.

Feedback included:

• the young people liked the scenarios
• the young people made comments which are reflective of the content of the WSA. This shows that the document is reflective of the situation in schools
• they wanted the WSA to be shared with children and young people, even though the intended audience is school staff
• young people showed distrust of schools to take action against racism and doubt that staff will read it, therefore reducing the impact

Chair thanked IYS and the young people for their input and time, and very helpful feedback.

The group commented:

• an important aspect of the effectiveness of the WSA will be the dissemination
• links with Education Leadership and Professional Learning (ELPL) workstream of the Anti-Racism in Education Programme (AREP), with regards to professional learning
• links with Education Scotland on professional learning

Whole School Approach (WSA) draft and next steps

The group discussed the draft WSA. The Chair noted that much of the feedback had been covered under agenda item 3. Further comments included:

• clarification that some of the 'interim guidance' content had been reduced for length and clarity based on feedback from critical friends
• the question on power imbalance should not be removed

The shortened guidance will be brought back to the workstream at the next meeting, with a view to final arrangement for publication in early 2026.

Any other business

The next meeting will be held on 8 October 2025.