King Ecgbert School has been awarded the Centre for Race, Educational & Decoloniality Anti-Racist School Award – Bronze Status.
The award recognises that the school is committed to tackling racism and building an anti-racist culture, and King Ecgbert’s is the first school in the country to meet the criteria.
Headteacher, Paul Haigh, said: “Our school values are centred around King Ecgbert School being a warm, welcoming and inclusive school where we aim that all students, no matter what their background, feel welcomed, respected, recognised and so able to thrive.
“Our reputation for inclusion is well known, but we feel strongly we have a moral responsibility to actively make the world a better place so the work on anti-racism has been a crucial part of our school’s development in the last few years.
“To be the first school in the country to reach this standard makes me immensely proud of the work the whole community – staff, students and parents, have done to make changes that make a genuine positive difference to the lives of our community.”
The award comes from the Leeds Beckett University Centre for Race, Education and Decoloniality (CRED) and is part of a process started in in 2022, where the school has worked with the support of CRED on six key areas to become an Anti-Racist School.
The six areas are leadership and management, school environment, professional learning and development, the hidden curriculum (uniform policies, ethos of the school, displays), curriculum and pedagogy (how they teach), and their work with parents/carers and community partnerships.
In order to achieve the award, the school has gone out of its way to listen to students, parents, carers and staff and kept their voices in mind as they planned to improve the school. They have also introduced a new Dignity and Respect policy to make it clearer and easier for everyone in the school community to report racism and to make sure it is followed up with education as well as restoration.
As well as a focus on every day improvements, such as awareness of micro aggressions, they have taken more opportunities to celebrate diversity, including a Cultural Dress day as part of a week of celebrations last summer, marking Black History Month, and this year they will introducing an Asian History Month.
CRED are now planning to set up a network connecting South Yorkshire schools with an interest in working towards the Anti-Racist School Award.
