Lack of BME teachers in English schools revealed but Brent presents a better picture

From Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Analysis by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has revealed a chronic lack of Black and Ethnic Minority (BME) teachers in English schools.

The Bureau found that:

Just 7.6% of teachers in state schools in England are people of colour compared with almost 25% of pupils.

97% of English state school headteachers are white.
Teachers are only fractionally more ethnically diverse than MPs in England.


South Tyneside, Newcastle upon Tyne and Middlesbrough need more than a tenfold increase in the number of BME teachers for staff to reflect their pupil populations. (See attached spreadsheet for full league table).


Responding to the findings, Chris Keates, general secretary of teachers union NASUWT said: “It is clearly unacceptable and it is also disgraceful. Education is such a powerful determiner of life chances. All children and people working within education should be treated with dignity and with access to equality. That clearly is not happening.”

The lack of BME teachers making it to leadership positions is seen as a major deterrent to would-be recruits. “There is a lack of fair and transparent recruitment procedures for interviews and a lack of awareness training for schools on equality issues,” Keates said.

Professor Alistair Ross from London Metropolitan University agreed: “You can’t put your finger on a single appointment and say “that’s a racist decision” but if you look at the disparity of outcomes nationally then there is the presumption that racism, perhaps unwittingly, is taking place.”

Attitudes to teaching from within the BME community are also regarded as a factor. Figures obtained by the Bureau show that only 13% of postgraduate trainee teachers in the 2014/2015 academic year were BME, compared with 35% of people studying medicine, dentistry and law at higher education institutions.

“Amongst the Asian community teaching is thought not to be regarded highly,” Ross said. “Law and medicine are considered much more reputable professions to go into from your family’s perspective. But I would expect that pressure to weaken as generations move on.”

“Part of the solution is to actively encourage young people from BME backgrounds to consider teaching as a valuable profession and at the same time, to talent spot and nurture BME teachers to consider taking up leadership positions,” said Leora Cruddas, director of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders.

A DfE spokesperson said: “We trust school leaders to recruit the right teachers for their classrooms but we are clear that good teams should reflect the diversity of their communities. The percentage of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) teachers is at its highest level on record, and the percentage of BME trainees on postgraduate training course continues to rise.

“We are investing millions of pounds to attract the best and the brightest into the profession, regardless of their background, and we’re also expanding Teach First to get more top graduates into teaching in some of the most challenging parts of the country.

“By supporting schools to recruit and retain the high quality teachers they need, we will ensure every child has an equal opportunity to reach their full potential.”


Added comment from Wembley Matters editor, Martin Francis.

The figures for London and for Brent are rather better perhaps indicating how different London is becoming from the rest of the country. This is particulalrly interesting in view of the widely acknowledged success of London schools.

Ratio of BME students to BME  teachers	Borough	% of BME students	% of BME teachers
2.1	Brent	76	37
2.3	Harrow	72	31
2.4	Hackney	66	28
2.4	Ealing	69	29
2.6	Lambeth	69	27
2.8	Barnet	48	17
2.8	Southwark	70	25
3.2	Hammersmith & Fulham	57	18
3.2	Islington	57	18
3.5	Camden	60	17

Stand Up to Racism demonstration, Portland Place, Noon tomorrow (Saturday)

There will be a Green bloc on the demonstration. Green Block assembly point 11-11:30am BBC Portland Place, Central London. We will have a large BME Greens banner, so you won't be able to miss us!!

Please bring your own banners and placards!!

March route:

Brent Anti Racism Campaign  (BARC) will also be present. Look out for a big banner with this logo on it:

Pavey Review not yet available but notes on Constitutional challenge released

The Agenda for Thuursday's meeting of the General Purposes Committee has now been published. The meeting is due to discuss the Pavey Review of Brent Human Resources but the report is not yet available on the Agenda web page.

I understand this is because there are some late additions being made. Instead of the report there is a placeholder:

Following the loss of an employment tribunal case in September, 2014, Councillor Pavey, Deputy Leader, who has Cabinet responsibility for Equalities and the Council’s role as employer, agreed to take stock of the Council’s policies and practice to see where improvements could be made.  Councillor Pavey has now completed his review and will present the findings to the General Purposes Committee.

Although the fullest possible report is obviously desirable, it is unfortunate that members of the committee, the press and the public won't have time to consider it in detail before the meeting.

The Annual Brent Diversity Profile LINK  has been published and this graphic tells its own story about racial equality (Sc3 is the lowest and Hay the highest). Overall % of council workers who are BME is 62%):

Meanwhile the indefatigible Philip Grant is now able to pass on notes of his meeting with Brent Council Leader Muhammed Butt following a resident's successful Freedom of Information request.

Philip asked for a meeting to raise his concerns over the Council's respect of its constitution.

Cllr. Butt had agreed that Mr Grant should take a note of their discussions, and that these should be sent to him for checking, with a view to producing an agreed accurate record of those discussions. It was Cllr. Butt's change of mind on that agreement which means that the Council now claims they are no more than Mr Grant's 'own personal recollection of the meeting'.

Regular readers of Wembley Matters will be able to put a name to the anonymised "AB", especially if they follow those initials in alphabetical order.

We need a different, supportive & conciliatory working culture at Brent Council

I have received many comments about the Empoyment Tribunal Judgment on Brent Council and Cara Davani,  This one I thought was worth publishing separaely as it gives a different, contextual view:

First the good stuff. Before Cara Davani arrived Human Resources in Brent was not fit-for-purpose. The few staff that were under-performing or not contributing could not be tackled by managers due to inadequate policies and procedures and HR advisors who were risk adverse, without realising the damaging impact that this was having on front-line services. CD did not do all the work, and cannot take all the credit, but be in no doubt whatsoever that under her leadership HR changed and is now fit-for-purpose, helping managers to build performing teams, establishing a modern flexible, service-first (not staff-first) culture. Without CD this would not have happened. She deserves enormous credit for this. As they saying goes, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.

I cannot definitively tell, but from what I have seen, CD is not a racist or prejudiced. Nevertheless, since Gareth Daniels left, the number of BME staff working in the top three tiers of managers, has unhelpfully plummeted - going down to just one at one stage. This era appeared to involve the recruitment of a number of people that had worked with the new senior officer leadership for previous employers. Perhaps this is a more benign reason for the reduction in BME senior managers?

CD's private website states that she is in a relationship with the Council's Senior Employment lawyer. Some worry that this might influence advice given and action taken. it would be a disciplined relationship indeed if both never talked informally about staff employment matters before formal employment advice is given on the same cases.

However, it is the case that many senior managers are wary of CD, the CEX and Leader. They all seem to come to quick judgements about people's careers based on small issues. CDs email in the Judgement that expressed her disappointed that a colleague did not say hello to her, is pretty typical. All three seem to have a view that managers that pre-date their coming to power 2 or 3 years ago, are somehow inferior and in many cases must go (and have gone). There has been a very strong centralisation of power, with even relatively senior managers no longer being authorised to make fairly mundane decisions. This engenders a sense that senior leaders, mistrust staff and junior managers to take those decisions, and culture of fear if small things like not saying hello, help build their view of you as an employee.

The coming year will be brutal, as heavy Government austerity cuts are implemented. This will hit services much harder than previously, as many of the softer options have already happened. Many more staff will lose their jobs in the next 18 months, and this further builds a culture of fear.

Be clear, Brent Council needed the shake-up, which Gareth Daniels launched, and CD played a big part in delivering. But it is now a brutal place to work, where expectations of staff - despite their being far fewer - is unhealthy and unreasonably high. We now need to move forward with a different supportive, conciliatory and team-building culture.

Black teachers and pupils and academisation - some issues

Back in the 1970s/80s I was involved in campaigns against racism in London schools. This had many facets including attitudes towards black pupils, disproportionate numbers of black pupils in SEN and Disruptive Pupils units, ethnic differences in examination entrance, a mono-cultural curriculum and not least discrimination against black teachers.

In this Guest Blog Dalian Adofo looks at current issues regarding the academisation of education:

2013 has been an interesting year for the state of UK education, we have witnessed a youtube video go ‘viral’ laying bare all the contradictions and misrepresentations put forth by the current Education secretary, Michael Gove. There has also been independent production of multiple documentaries highlighting the enforced conversion of many schools into Academies even with resistance by teaching staff and the local communities they serve. In most cases the only justification for conversion to Academies have being that provided by Ofsted after a school inspection.

The resistance to Academies is not so hard to understand, how is education a commodity? The body of knowledge to be acquired can be commoditised yes, but the process of learning as well? It does not take much to realise that we all learn at a different paces based on different cognitive, social and other factors, hence why teachers by default are required to differentiate the learning process to give all students the opportunity to progress sufficiently in their learning.

It is therefore wise that we question the impact imposing targets and performance management directives as tools to measure ‘work efficiency’ will be in such an environment for learning. How will these pressures to perform, part and parcel of the Academies model of education, affect teaching and learning in the long run?               Will teachers be working to ensure they meet targets and keep their jobs or take time out to provide for individual learning needs and requirements, not forgetting the longer hours of work and more paperwork to complete by teachers.

Newspaper coverage from outlets such as the Independent has highlighted the despair and low morale of teachers from surveys carried out by organisations such as the National Union of Teachers (NUT), so the main question is, why is the Government not listening? And is it not obvious who teachers will ultimately be exerting such frustrations on, and will it be a positive impact on learning? I strongly doubt it.

Evidence from the US where the Charter schools model provided the inspiration for our Academies, shows that some of these institutions, usually in highly impoverished inner-city areas, are abandoned within a decade by their investors presumably because their investments has earned returns so it is time to move on.

But what about the wellbeing and development of the child, or does the money matter more? Is this the type of education we want for our children? Or is the suggestion that this is the type of education that children from such backgrounds deserve?

The other disturbing element to the Academies is the lack of Black (in the political sense) staff in senior management positions and as regular staff. Data from the recent Black Teachers Conference suggests that increasingly, non-White staff are being ‘replaced’ with White peers using the same performance management processes that are meant to encourage ‘efficiency’ and ‘high performance’. Rather bizarre?

It is rather disheartening that one of the stated objectives for introducing Academies is to improve standards in inner-city schools yet there seems to be no impetus to keep staff who best reflect the student demographic itself. It is interesting that every year hundreds of non-white individuals will successfully endure and pass teacher-training courses across the country, yet somehow when on the job they are deemed ‘inadequate’…how is this contradiction being addressed by the Government?

And if indeed, we are to entertain the ridiculous notion that non-whites are somehow inadequate in comparison to their white counterparts, then what measures has the Government introduced to ensure that this section of its populace can excel to the ‘desired standards’ once in employment? From the evidence presented at the conference, such ‘enforced removals’ are not strictly for non-whites either, even though they are in the majority. What measures then is the Government or Ofsted implementing to ensure objective measurement of performance rather than what is seemingly subjective judgments informed by nepotistim and/or favouritism?

Entertaining that idea that social standing, class or ethnicity puts one in better stead to educate children is as elitist as it is racist, and utterly preposterous- certainly not a notion to be entertained in a nation priding itself on its democratic values. What will a person from the leafy suburbs of Windsor have in common with a child from the ‘concrete jungles’ of Stonebridge, Brixton or Tower Hamlets?

How will that individual inspire the child to succeed, where is the area of commonality, shared experience and empathetic understanding of the child’s needs beyond the transference of knowledge?

My PGCE at the Institute Of Education clearly outlined the role other pertinent factors play in learning beyond the acquisition of knowledge- how important ethnic, cultural, religious/spiritual and social factors amongst others, played in motivating children to succeed. How can this vision of ‘raising standards’ for these ‘deprived’ children be realised if the only role-models they can find in their school are the cleaners, janitors and meal staff?

What exactly are we trying to get them to aspire to then- just being white and upper-class as the standard of achievement? Suffice to say, we are no longer in the days of empire, the sun set on it long ago, and for the state of education to be enriching for all, it has to grow to appreciate the important roles varied backgrounds and individuals can play in making it an inspiring experience for all involved in the educational transaction. Whilst all these political, economic and social games are being played, we must not forget the most important factor in all this- the children, and ask ourselves is this the best course of action for their future? Is this the future we want for them?

Readers may be interested in this research about black teachers in the UK LINK

Remembering Bernie Grant on the day Thatcher died by Patrick Vernon

Apart from the death of Margaret Thatcher, today also marks the 13th anniversary of the death of Bernie Grant one of her greatest enemies. In this guest blog first published on The Voice website, potential Labour candidate for Brent Central, Patrick Vernon, asks what would Bernie make of the current political climate:

TODAY IS the 13th anniversary of the death of the late Bernie Grant, MP for Tottenham between 1987 to 2000 and former leader of Haringey Council.


In the 1980s and 1990s Bernie often spoke the truth, real feelings and passions on behalf of every one which meant he became a thorn in the side of Thatcherism and New Labour.


However, he was still respected and revered as the elder statesman and father of the house for black parliamentary representation.


People today still talk about Bernie’s life, achievements and legacy at times in a present tense which reflects his impact but also the gap in current black leadership and the question of more elected representatives.
Just imagine if Bernie were still alive today. What would he have made of this period of austerity and the coalition government with increasing inequality facing BME communities; the introduction of bedroom tax; welfare reform, immigration policy, and massive cuts to public services?


How would Bernie make the case today for all black Parliamentary short list, social justice and reparations?


I believe that Bernie would be turning in his grave to see how the coalition government has no or very little regard to race equality policy and legislation which he and many others made this a life and at times a death struggle over the last 50 years.


The issue of black representation and self-organising groups like the development of Black Sections in the Labour Party (now BAME Labour) and black workers groups in trade union movement was one of his strategies for empowerment and developing a black-led perspective on Democratic Socialism.


Bernie today would be supporting and sustaining a new breed of candidates based on following policy and campaigning areas: climate change; defending public sector services; fighting for all equalities; stopping the privatisation of health and social care; affordable and more social housing; tackling education inequality; open government; regulation of financial services /taxing the bankers; tackling poverty and social inequality; police accountability, foreign affairs, international development, heritage and the arts.


One way of taking forward the legacy of Bernie Grant is developing a political education programme around his vision and principles to attract and identity the next generation of potential councillors, MPs, MEPs and community activists.

Bernie supporting a traffic protest

Bernie believed in the community and the community believed in him.


That is why he is still popular and an iconic figure which was reflected in Bernie being in the top ten of 100 Great Black Britons back in 2002.


So let us use this opportunity to reflect on his legacy in politics, the trade union movement and grass roots activism.


I know many of us are trying to do capture and follow his vision today. That is why his political legacy, The Bernie Grant Arts Centre, The Bernie Grant Trust and his archives at the Bishopsgate Institute are essential resources for political education, learning for young people, aspiring, seasoned politicians and campaigners.


‘The Importance of the Black Vote’ will be held at Dalston CLR James Library, Dalston Square, Hackney, London, E8 3BQ on Friday April 12th 2013 at 18:30- 21:00. Speakers include Simon Woolley of OBV, MP Diane Abbott, Jules Pipe Mayor of Hackney, Ngoma Bishop of BEMA and Pauline Pearce from the Hackney Liberal Democrats. The event will be chaired by Andrea Enisuoh of BEMA & Hackney Unites.

Vernon explains why he wants to represent Brent Central at the beginning of this video LINK