Whole school approach to racism and racist incidents: guidance

Targeted Responses: Responding to parents, carers, and families who experience racism in a school setting

Parents, carers, and family members play an important role in developing a whole school approach to anti-racism. However, adversely racialised parents, carers, or family members may also experience racism or racist behaviour when participating in school community life, such as:

• when engaging with the learning of their children at home
• being involved in school activities such as accompanying a school trip
• during routine activities in the school day, such as drop-off and pick-up times

School leaders should be clear that any report of a racist incident or racist behaviour towards parents, carers, or families will be taken seriously. The response that the school will take to an incident of racism experienced by a parent or family member will depend on who is displaying the racist behaviour:

• If a child or young person displays racist behaviour towards a parent or family member of another pupil while in school, the school should follow the responses set out in the previous section
• If a staff member displays racist behaviour towards a parent or family member of a pupil, this should be reported to school senior leadership and taken forward in line with HR process
• If another parent or family member displays racist behaviour towards an adversely racialised parent or family, schools should consider the context of the incident to determine next steps (see below)
• If a parent, carer, or family member experiences racism through material seen at school (e.g. racist graffiti on school walls) or materials shared by the school (e.g. content of homework), this should be reported to school leadership

School leaders should consider how their policies around recording racist incidents will apply in these circumstances and ensure that school staff are aware of how to respond to a report.

If the racist incident takes place in a parent council, it is the responsibility of the parent council to respond in line with its code of conduct. The school can signpost support for this process and should remain informed of the steps taken in response.

Racist behaviour displayed by other parents, carers, or families in the school community

School staff cannot provide arbitration of incidents between parents. However, schools can play a key role in fostering good relations, respect and understanding between communities. The focus of school leaders should be on fostering safe school environments, by developing school values and building shared expectations of conduct and a shared culture and ethos throughout the whole school community. Schools can also provide signposting to support for families who are experiencing racism in the wider school community.

Any incidents which are reported to the school should be responded to sensitively. If the school becomes aware of an incident of racist behaviour displayed by a parent or family member towards the parent or family member of another pupil, there are several actions school leadership may wish to consider in response to the situation:

• If the incident is reported to the school by the adversely racialised parent or family member who experienced it, school leaders can explain that while they cannot intervene, parents, carers, and family members can seek support from services such as Victim Support Scotland, or local support groups where available. Where the incident has involved behaviour of a criminal nature such as threatening or abusive behaviour, assault, damage to property, harassment or trying to stir up hatred, this could be a hate crime and the parent can seek advice from Police Scotland
• School leadership may wish to consider the possible impact of the incident for the children or young people of the parents involved and take active steps to address this; for example, staff should consider whether any children involved would benefit from further support, or if the incident between parents is part of a situation involving racism between their children which requires addressing (see Responding to racist incidents experienced by children and young people”, above)
• While schools cannot provide mediation, there may be options available to improve the safety of the school environment, for example making arrangements to limit the chance of a parent affected by racism encountering the person responsible by staggering pick-up and drop-off times
• There may be opportunities for whole school anti-racist education, for example by sharing what children are learning or seeking collaboration in developing anti-racism policies or curriculum content.