We, the undersigned, call on Wandsworth Council to:

"Encourage local schools to adopt an Anti-Racism Code of Best Practice, written by and for Wandsworth residents" 

In July 2020, Labour Councillors Kemi Akinola and Maurice Mcleod put forward a motion on the bill ‘Black Lives Matter and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority (BAME) Communities’, which included a commitment to ‘lobby central government to have Black British History, the history of British Colonialism and Windrush taught as part of the primary curriculum’.We were disappointed to learn that when the bill was amended, this commitment was removed entirely. If the Council will not pursue the issue to a central government level, we feel they should model the changes to education constituents would like to see here in Wandsworth. 

Many schools within the Wandsworth borough are already making great inroads into ensuring anti-racism practices are interwoven into their policies, but nevertheless, racism in schools continues to exist. African and Caribbean pupils are three times more likely to be expelled than their White peers. The 2017/18 statistics in Wandsworth show that 19 young people were expelled from school permanently. To address this, we call on the Wandsworth Council to show leadership in anti-racism by encouraging schools to sign up to a Code of Best Practice.

This Code of Best Practice provides guidance to schools, setting out goals and tools to address both the curriculum and the school communities. It is vital that our schools reflect the communities we live in and that they celebrate racial equality. All students must be able to see themselves both in the curriculum and in their teaching communities, not just white students. Help us show Wandsworth Council that their constituents expect them to be leaders on this issue by working with our schools to build a better education system for young people in Wandsworth.