Racism and Racist Incidents subgroup minutes: April 2025

 

Attendees and apologies

Attendees

• Scottish Council of Independent Schools (SCIS)
• Association of Directors of Education (ADES)
• Advocacy for Race Equality in Schools Scotland (AdRESS)
• Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Organisations (CEMVO) Scotland
• Respectme
• Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS)
• Scottish Government
• University of the West of Scotland (UWS) (Chair)
• Independent anti-racism consultant
• Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER)

Apologies

• Education Scotland
• Connect
• Intercultural Youth Scotland (IYS)

Items and actions

Welcome and announcements

The Chair welcomed members and noted apologies as above. The Chair reminded members of the responsibilities of respectful co-working, as per the workstream’s terms of reference.

Minutes from previous meeting

The minute of the March meeting was circulated by email. Two typos were noted and corrected in the attendee list. Members confirmed that they are content for the minutes to be published.

Action: Secretariat to publish March minutes on Scottish Government website.

Interim Guidance

EIS noted that the Diversity in the Teaching Profession and Education Workforce (DiTPEW) subgroup had provided comments on the Interim Guidance and Whole School Approach (WSA) section on staff. Secretariat confirmed that DiTPEW feedback on Interim Guidance had been incorporated into the current draft. The feedback on staff section of the WSA will be taken forward in the coming weeks in collaboration with DiTPEW workstream lead.

ADES noted that it could be shared with other workstreams. Secretariat confirmed that it has been shared with DiTPEW workstream and the members of the AREP Board. ADES and Scottish Government will pick up with respect to final clearance process and engagement with Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA). 

The Chair highlighted that today is a key point for finalising of the document. If the group are in agreement, the document will not be returned for further discussion following this meeting. The next stages are the internal Scottish Government clearance processes, part of which will be engagement with the COSLA Children and Young People’s Board.

CEMVO noted the scale of work and collaboration that gone into the guidance document

The document refers to the previous Addressing Inclusion guidance. Respectme noted that Addressing Inclusion can be updated with the new anti-bullying definition and agreed to action this ahead of publication of the Interim Guidance.

Group agreed that they were content to proceed with publication.

Action: Secretariat to organise clearance and publication of interim guidance.

Evaluation section of Whole School Approach (WSA)

Draft evaluation section has been shared with members for consideration.

Respectme requested change to ‘anti-bullying policies’ on pg 2, policies and systems section.

EIS queried whether all Local Authorities (LAs) use SEEMiS. Scottish Government confirmed that all currently use SEEMiS. Chair noted that not all LAs use SEEMiS in the same way, and different LAs may not use SEEMiS to record racist incidents. Scottish Government agreed that there is work needed to achieve consistency in how racist incidents are recorded. The Interim Guidance and WSA will both provide guidance on this.

EIS queried how reports of racist incidents experienced by staff are recorded. Scottish Government confirmed that this is an HR process for staff. EIS suggested that engagement with LAs may be helpful to build picture of staff recording process. Scottish Government noted that there is crossover with violence in schools work and will link up these pieces of work.

Chair noted that staff recording can be brought back as agenda item to a future meeting, and will also tie in with wider work on Staff sections of WSA.

ADES asked if it would be good to change wording under challenge questions to ‘school leaders’ instead of school staff. Alternatively, add a challenge question for school leaders about racial literacy, demonstrating commitment to anti-racism. 

It was suggested that question about patterns and trends could be moved higher, as it is important for all other aspects of evaluation. Also add something about how patterns of racist incidents may relate to other data the school may hold, e.g., links to complaints, observations from teachers, other types of data that the school holds.

Independent racism consultant noted that engagement with parents and carers should be included in evaluation questions. WSA must include families and staff.

CRER notes that to take an evaluative approach and to measure change, there needs to be a baseline of existing data.

Under ‘culture and ethos’ section, there is a mention of ‘faith and community groups’. It was noted that some groups may not have awareness around anti-racism and may not align with schools’ equalities practices. This should be recognised when schools seek engagement with community groups. Schools need to base their anti-racism work on their duties under the Equality Act.

ADES suggested that the Evaluation section could be more clearly linked to How Good is Our School (HGIOS), including professional learning and development, and all staff legislative obligations to be aware of equalities and inclusion. There is also a link to the wording of General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) standards on commitment to social justice and equalities.

It was suggested that there should be a separate section for evaluating racism towards staff, to make clear these are distinct priorities. This links to work being done in collaboration with DiTPEW workstream on staff who experience racism in school.  

CEMVO noted that children and young people may confide in families rather than report to school. It is important that this is reflected in the parents and families section. There should also be a reflective question about whether families know who to contact if their child or young person experiences a racist incident, and if there is a process in place for the school to respond. In some cases, families are well informed but schools may be unreceptive or unsure of response.

Respectme are finalising the new Bullying and Trauma resource for launch in May. This will be a self-directed learning resource, free to access from the Respectme website. This can be included in the WSA as a resource on trauma-informed responses.

SCIS noted support of the line ‘children supported according to needs’, including reference to specialist schools. This should be mirrored throughout WSA.

The Chair thanked members for their feedback and noted that any further comments can be emailed directly to Secretariat.

Action: Secretariat to update Evaluation section to take account of comments received.

Any other business

The Chair shared that the role description for the third chair will be shared with workstream following meeting and members will be invited to send their nominations to the Secretariat. If there are multiple nominations, members will be invited to vote.

The next meeting is scheduled for 11th June. It would be useful to keep working on the WSA over the summer months. Secretariat will circulate a Doodle poll with aim of arranging one meeting over the summer period, and returning to regular meetings in September.