An interview with Margaret Simmons-Bird MBE, Commissioner and Vice Chair for the Bristol Commission on Race Equality (CoRE) by Toby Underhill, UWE English Literature Placement
Following on from the UN’s International Day of Education, I decided to use my placement with BSWN to shed light on the UK’s education system. Data shows that racial inequality in the education system is still a prevalent issue, as Black and Minoritised children are greatly overrepresented in exclusions and academic underachievement. This has been a recurring trend for many years and quite clearly demonstrates the iniquity in schools and colleges across the country.
Photograph of Toby Underhill during his UWE English Literature Placement at BSWN.
Margaret Simmons-Bird MBE is a Commissioner for the Bristol Commission on Race Equality, Co-Chair of the Bristol City Council Race Equality in Education Group. She is a former Director of Education in Bath and North East Somerset. She kindly took the time to answer some of my questions regarding the vitality of providing a fair and inclusive education for Black and Minoritised children and her work with CoRE in achieving this aim.
Photograph of Margaret Simmons-Bird MBE, Vice Chair for CoRE.
Toby
Thank you very much for joining me, Margaret. Firstly, what inspires you to work with CoRE, and specifically, why is your primary focus on education?
Margaret
I have always had a passion for working in education because I passionately believe that education is the key to success, and it transforms lives. All the research shows that people who have a good education have good health; good social health, good mental health, and they are more likely to be able to engage positively in their communities and in wider society. I know this from my own experience, from the way I was brought up. My parents always said to us, “If you want to be successful, you need to first and foremost get a good education.” So, for me, I believe that if you have a good education, you are going to be a better person.
Toby
As former Director of Education in Bath and North East Somerset, what's a recurring barrier that you are met with within the education system?
Margaret
I think one of the major problems that I have experienced is the lack of aspiration for children from Black and Minoritised backgrounds in schools. The expectations are not high enough and there are too many assumptions and stereotypes about children from Black heritage backgrounds. The data speaks volumes, and the data is consistent over decades, and it is not getting any better. Post-COVID, the data shows the attainment gap has gotten worse. It cannot be that our children are just not bright enough to do better - it must be something to do with the education system and how the education system serves our children and young people. Our young people don't always see people in schools who look like them, so I think representation in terms of teachers, senior school leaders, head teachers, and chief executives of schools, is paramount. They just don't see those people like them, people who understand the barriers and the challenges that they experience on a day-to-day basis.
I do think that the experience of racism from other children and staff is not always taken seriously, and there is no consideration of how that impacts Black and Minoritised children's readiness to learn or their motivation to engage in learning. They feel that those who are supposed to be supporting them in their learning don't have high expectations, or at least not the same expectations that they have for white peers. Sometimes teachers and school leaders don't know what to do to support, so I think it's a combination of not doing the right thing, but also not knowing how to do the right thing. They need the support and strategies to help them address the concerns of Black and Minitorised children and young people.
All the Bristol data shows that particularly Black Caribbean boys and mixed Caribbean boys are failing considerably, they are disproportionally overrepresented in exclusions and suspensions, attendance, and in the identification of having special education needs. That can't be right.
Toby
There are schemes and organisations that are looking to promote and inspire young Black and Minoritised children to get into higher education. Do you think that there is a misunderstanding of the requirements for them overall, where children deemed as talented are catered for academically, whilst the majority of Black and Minoritised children are not provided with the same resources and support in schools?
Margaret
I certainly think that schemes can work, but there need to be programmes that young people engage with and are built and informed by the experience of young Black and Minoritised people. As older adults, we make assumptions about what young people want, and we frequently get that wrong. It's about asking them what they want, and what would help them achieve their ambitions. Quite often schemes will open a door to a higher education institution, which is great for young Black and Minoritised students! But what do you do once they get there? Are you making sure that the curriculum is relevant? Are you making sure that when they say: “I have experienced racism” or “I am experiencing discrimination”, you are dealing with that in a way that addresses their concerns? Are you always assuming that they need help with reading and writing and maths? Many universities say, “We run extra courses for our minority students.” Why? That is a negative approach. If I was a student, I wouldn't go to those sessions, because why would I? It’s not about opening the door because the door just opens you up to something that hasn't been designed with you in mind or hasn't considered what barriers and difficulties you might experience.
““It’s not about opening the door because the door just opens you up to something that hasn’t been designed with you in mind” ”
Toby
If the system itself is a barrier to Black and Minoritised children, succeeding within that system doesn’t necessarily provide Minoritised ethnicities with a voice.
Margaret
For example, the experience of unconscious bias: teachers and lecturers who assume things about you because either they may have experiences with a previous student from your ethnic background, or simply that they don't really want you there in the first place. You can talk to any young Black person or parent and ask them about their experience and they will tell you that when it's options evening at the school, they or their child is being put into a group where they don't get the top grades at GCSE. What is that based on? It is based on all sorts of subjective views from the teacher or member of staff. We know that the grade gap between Black students and students from other ethnic minority backgrounds is significant in many universities. How can anybody tell me that all our students are not as bright as their white counterparts?
I'm not prepared to buy that. If a university finds that their grade boundaries for students from a different ethnic minority background are always lower and they are less likely to get a first-class degree, then they must ask themselves the question: “what are we doing about it?” What are you doing to enable and support those students to get those first-class grades and close the gap? Which departments have the biggest grade gaps, and which have the smallest? I think it's because there is discrimination in the way that they are assessing our students and how those grade boundaries are being decided.
I know that from the personal experience of my daughter. I can also quote lots of parents who've been in the same place; young people doing A-levels who are told not to apply for Oxford and Cambridge. “You won't get in”. Well, how do you know that?
Toby
Leading on from your point regarding teachers being unsure how to approach the issue of racism, I remember when I was at primary school, we had an assembly titled “Bullying and Racism.” I think that's quite interesting, because I think white people sometimes bundle racism and bullying together, which undermines the nuance of structural racism and unconscious bias, and it shows a lack of understanding and education. Would it be fair to say that drastic changes need to be made in the methods that schools use to deal with racism?
Margaret
Racism is a safeguarding issue. It's not a bullying issue. It's a safeguarding issue because if a child is being subjected to racial harassment and racial abuse in school, it means that they're not safe in school. As a Black parent, when your child walks out the door to go to school, there are lots of concerns about what might happen to them on the way to and from school. Are they going to experience racism getting on the bus? Are they going to experience racism in school? That's something that we can't get away from.
If a child is not safe from racial abuse and racial harassment in school, then actually they're not safe to learn, it is a barrier to learning and it greatly impacts their social, and emotional well-being and in some cases their physical well-being.
Toby
Bristol is seen by many, my age especially, as a very progressive city. Do you think that can be an accolade as well as a hindrance to promoting racial equality?
Margaret
It is a really interesting question actually, because there is a view that Bristol is very forward-looking, and I agree that Bristol has the right policies regarding how we tackle under-representation, and issues around how we improve engagement with all communities, ensuring all communities have a voice. But sometimes that can be a disadvantage because people think everything is okay.
Bristol is very lucky. We've got a Black Mayor, we've got a Black Deputy Mayor, we've got Black councillors, we've got a small number of Black secondary head teachers and a small number of Black CEOs in positions of power, but it's nowhere near consistent with the percentage of Black and Minoritised people living in Bristol. Just under a third of Bristol’s school population is from a Black and Minoritised background. We still only have about 7% of Black teachers in schools and even fewer school leaders. That doesn't make any sense. You look at governance and it is the same story.
When looking at education as a key fundamental entitlement for all of us, we haven't moved very far in decades. Less than 10% of teaching professionals are from a Black Minoritised background! When I was a director of education, I was the only Black director of education in the West. There have been some improvements in education, but if you scrutinise where the decisions are being made, and who is sitting around the table when key decisions and policies are being made representation is patchy at best. We need physical diversity of presence at the table not diversity of thought!
So, it's a yes and no, isn't it? We've come a long way, but we still have a very long way to go. We have a duty to make sure that Black and Minoritised children experience success in their education career because every child has an entitlement to experience success at their level throughout their schooling career, and if one child is not experiencing that, we're failing that child and the system is failing the child. If we make it right for children from Black and minority backgrounds, we will make it right for all children. But at the moment, we're not doing that, and I will continue to fight until we transform this system that’s failing our children.
““If we make it right for children from Black and minority backgrounds, we will make it right for all children” ”
Photograph taken at CoRE’s meeting in public focused on Education in 2022.
The Commission is committed to leading the charge in dismantling systemic and structural racism, understanding our unique position of influence within the city and engaging all sectors of society to strive for racial justice in areas such as employment, enterprise, criminal justice, health, education, and housing. The Education Task and Finish Group has been established to focus on eliminating disparities that exist in the city with respect to education.