Project Aims:

1. To stimulate an explicit exploration of racism, its routes, manifestation and consequences with pupils;
2. To use the project to promote anti-racism across the whole school community, and forge further anti-racist links with the neighbouring school (St Paul’s with St Luke’s School).

The school match-funded the LEA’s £8,000 so that the following project could take place.

Project Objectives:

From an anti-racist perspective:

• To develop creative classroom strategies for promoting anti-racism/challenging racism that will be disseminated across the staff team and used with all pupils.
• To increase knowledge, understanding and respect of other cultures, and develop a greater awareness of the consequences of racist attitudes and behaviour across the whole school community.
• To reinforce and enhance the culture of challenging racism within the school and promoting Anti-racism vigorously within the community the school serves.

The Project Manager
The project was co-ordinated by a project manager from Cloth of Gold, working in partnership with the school co-ordinator and the head teacher. They were also responsible for ensuring the project met the aims and objectives, and for evaluating the project.

The School Project Co-ordinator
The school project co-ordinator was responsible for liaising between the school staff, project manager and artist team, and supporting project arrangements within the school. They were also responsible for monitoring the development of the project, in line with the identified project aims.

Artist 1- Writer/Producer
The artist used physical drama and movement, poetry, chants and song to develop expressive work about racism and how it affects pupils themselves, their behaviour and their relationship with one another, their families and friends, both inside and outside the school. Pupils worked individually and in groups to develop group ‘statues’ that were then shown as part of the presentation at the end of the project. They also developed written chants, stories and statements about their experience of racism, which were performed, presented to the school as displays and printed onto group banners and onto the anti-racist books that were produced.

Artist 2 – Musician
The musician used song, rhymes, sound and words, developed into musical responses with instruments in workshop sessions around the anti-racist theme.

Artist 3 – Screen Printer
The screen printer created a large and expressive anti-racist banner, a series of smaller group banners for the performance, and produced three anti-racist fabric books with pupils.

The project began in the Spring Term 2002 with two Year 6 Classes.
Pupils used expressive drama, poetry and sound to explore how racism affects them, their friends and their families. Through discussion and board blasting, they identified possible route causes of racism within their own community and shared incidences of its manifestation.

They then collaborated on creating a large and explicit anti-racist banner, and produced 2 books of poems and anti-racist statements for the school entrance.
To promote the project across the whole school, the year 6 pupils presented outcomes of the project at the end of the spring term to the whole school and to a visiting group of pupils from St Paul’s with St Luke’s, the neighbouring school.

To establish the project’s effectiveness so far, on-line evaluation forms were posted up for pupils that had been involved in the project to date, with direct questions relating to both the project and pupils’ understanding of racism within the school and the local community.

Staff then met and assessed the impact of the project, and clarified strategies for the next stage to ensure the project aims and objectives were met.
The summer term began with two twilight Inset sessions for the whole staff team. The first session was led by an anti-racist facilitator. It focused on race awareness, establishing agreed terminology in relation to race, racial groups etc. within the school, and clarified expectations of staff in the implementation of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000.

The second INSET discussed the impact of the project so far, established how it would best be continued and explored processes of working that the artists would be using over the remainder of the project. Staff then identified which classes would work with the artists, and how approaches used by artists to address issues of racism could be used effectively across all the year groups.
The artists then worked with two classes – one from year 5 and one from year 3. This time they used the school’s large anti-racist banner, produced in the previous term by year 6 pupils, as a resource, to explore racism with pupils, through discussion and further expressive drama work. Year 5 pupils then developed written and visual ideas in groups that explored different emotions associated with racism. Year 3 pupils produced three anti-racist books that expressed how racism made them feel, the impact of racist language in their lives and how they would rather relate to one another and their community.
The artists then worked with teachers throughout the rest of the school to illustrate approaches and strategies that had been developed over the project, and demonstrated how resources developed with pupils should be used to tackle racism.

Year 5 pupils then presented their work to the whole school in an assembly and to key stage 2 pupils from the neighbouring school – St. Paul’s with St. Luke’s School.

The project was then evaluated by artists and teachers.

The objectives, as outlined in the initial proposal, were met in the following ways:

The project addressed issues of racism within the school in an explicit way. Pupils explored the root causes of racism in their community and amongst themselves, and discussed and wrote about how it impacted upon their lives. Outcomes of the project have already been used to promote anti-racism at the school, and will continue to be used by teachers to address racism in the future. The project successfully managed to further the link with St. Paul’s with St. Luke’s Primary School in tackling racism, and a further collaboration to continue this work is being set up for the new academic year.

Objectives:

From an anti-racist perspective:
• To develop creative classroom strategies for promoting anti-racism/challenging racism that will be disseminated across the staff team and used with all pupils.
Strategies developed throughout the project with artists were successfully transferred to teaching staff through the Inset and follow-on sessions in each year group. Resources that were produced by pupils proved extremely effective for addressing issues of racism with all age groups.
• To increase knowledge, understanding and respect of other cultures, and develop a greater awareness of the consequences of racist attitudes and behaviour across the whole school community

The project provoked discussions with both staff and pupils, which were effective in increasing knowledge and understanding of different cultural groups represented within the school community. Racist attitudes and behaviour and their consequences were explored in depth with all pupils participating in the project and outcomes successfully communicated across the rest of the school through presentation, displays and follow-up sessions.

• To reinforce and enhance the culture of challenging racism within the school and promoting Anti-racism vigorously within the community the school serves

The project highlighted and reinforced the need to continue to challenge racism within the school community and, through providing practical and creative strategies to address this, has been successful in furthering this objective. The public display of explicitly anti-racist project outcomes in the school entrance, as well as the school’s intention to establish a permanent area dedicated to anti-racism within the school, will further promote the school’s commitment to anti-racism across the community.

Project Strengths

• The use of expressive drama was particularly successful in encouraging an explicit approach to the anti-racist theme.

• The development of permanent anti-racist resource material created by pupils for use across the school.

• Giving pupils the opportunity to share their personal experiences of racism in a safe and supportive setting, and focusing on feelings and emotions associated with racism was very effective in addressing racism for pupils of all ages and cultural backgrounds.

• Staff response during and after Inset sessions and their enthusiasm to implement anti-racist strategies independently in the classroom.

• Further development of the anti-racist partnership with the neighbouring school.

• Evidence of how effective anti-racist initiatives with St. Paul’s with St. Luke’s School have already been in reducing racial tension and promoting greater understanding between pupils from the two schools.

Improvements

• The project organisation and assimilation of outcomes across the school staff would have been easier to implement and ultimately more effective had the school not undergone so many staff changes both during the project and immediately afterwards (including the change of head teacher).

• Ancillary staff and classroom helpers should have attended anti-racist Inset sessions.

• School governors and parents could have been more directly involved in the initiative.

The project evaluation of artists, pupils and staff has brought about the following recommendations for taking this work forward:

• The school to establish a permanent anti-racist resource area within the school.
• The school to develop a resource pack for staff of ‘creative’ strategies for using the resources developed during the project.
• The school to review how well these strategies are implemented at the end of the autumn term 2002 and to book a follow-up session with project artists for the spring term 2003.
• The school to set up an anti-racist Inset session for all support workers and classroom assistants.
• The neighbouring school, St. Paul’s with St. Luke’s Primary, to run a further collaborative anti-racist project in partnership with Stebon pupils.

 

	Overview
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	St Agnes (RC) Primary School
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	Swanlea Secondary School
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