Goldstone Primary School & Little Owls Nursery

We are currently in year 2 of our School Development plan cycle that has 'Growing an Anti–Racist School' (GARS) as one of our key objectives.

Below are some of our recent initiatives:

In 2022-23

• We have re-written our equalities and inclusion statement.
• We have written a Goldstone anti-racist education strategy to sit alongside the city-wide Brighton and Hove anti-racist education strategy.
• We have an anti-racist education steering group meeting once every half term to monitor our progress and drive the work forward.
• All staff have received racial literacy training and there will continue to be training available.
• We have reviewed and developed our reporting procedure for incidents where race is a factor (as well as for incidents where any other protected characteristic is a factor) this is giving us a much clearer picture of what is happening and giving us the information, we need to be able to offer targeted learning around race for all our students
• We have run pupil support groups for children identifying as BRM. These have been run by BRM staff as a place for children transitioning in the final two years of primary to have a safe space to talk through experiences they’ve had or questions they have.
• We held two forums for the parents/carers of BRM children to come and discuss their ideas and observations.
• All year groups have a designated teacher to monitor how anti-racist education is being implemented.
• All year groups have made updates to their topic planning to incorporate a more diverse world view and our class reading spines now have a diverse range of authors and characters. Our reading spines are available to view here.

In 2023-24 we are planning to:

• Have another forum for parents and carers
• Hold regular EAL coffee mornings
• Develop our BRM pupil support
• Use data to have a clear picture of how our BRM cohort are learning and developing both academically and in extracurricular activities
• Continue to monitor and act on incidents where race is a factor
• Be mindful of the intersections of racial identity and other characteristics
• Continue to “decolonise and diversify” our curriculum
• Continue to build connections between our other school priorities such as the Our City Our World project and our commitment to becoming a School of Sanctuary.

The theme for Black History Month UK this year is ‘Celebrating our Sisters’

Here at Goldstone we will be paying a visual tribute to women and girls who have in the past, and are right now, breaking through boundaries and inspiring others.

Rather than teach one off lessons, we want the history of Black and racialised communities, of the global majority, to be celebrated all year round as part of British history and world history. We are one race, the human race, and we have a collective history albeit that it has many component parts!

As part of this commitment, we will use Black history Month, October, to re-focus on what we want to achieve.

• We will make anti racism a standing item on the meeting agendas of all staff groups in October; SLT, Phase meetings, year group planning, teaching staff meetings.
• There will be an anti-racist staff meeting and a Twilight training to help us develop our ability to talk appropriately and safely about race and how philosophical enquiry techniques can be used to explore concepts around race and faith.
• We will make some of the people featured in our displays the subject of whole school assemblies.
• We will use our singing assembly to highlight the contributions of BRM musician.

The history of Black History Month

Black History month in the UK began in the 1987 and was largely due to the vision and hard work of Ghanian analyst and activist Akyaaba Addai-Sebo.

Addai-Sebo said: “I was stirred up in the mid 1980s by the identity crisis that Black children faced. A crisis of identity faced us squarely despite the Race Awareness campaigns of the Greater London Council and the Inner London Education Authority. More had to be done and so I conceived an annual celebration of the contributions of Africa, Africans, and people of African descent to world civilisation.”

He was inspired the history month that took place in the USA every February, that had originated from the work of African American academic and historian Dr Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History.  Click on the link above to find out more.