The murder of George Floyd last May left many people asking themselves some uncomfortable questions. Floyd’s death, and the global protests that followed it, sparked increased awareness of the injustices experienced by black people in their everyday lives. This forced all kinds of organisations to look again at how their policies and practices could be contributing to institutional racism.

Schools, too, have been moved to look again at their work in this area. And while plenty has already been done to try to get rid of racial bias - through “decolonising” curricula and improving representation at a senior leadership level, for instance - when it comes to the attainment of black pupils, the statistics suggest that the steps schools are already taking aren’t going far enough to fix the problem. The most up-to-date statistics from the 2019-20 academic year showed that, if both free school meals (FSM) and non-FSM pupils are included, boys from black Caribbean and mixed white/black Caribbean backgrounds have the lowest average Attainment 8 scores of any group except Gypsy, Roma and Irish Traveller pupils.

In addition, only 29.2 per cent of boys from black Caribbean backgrounds gain a grade 5 or higher in both English and maths at GCSE, and the figures for some other black and mixed ethnicity categories are not much higher.

In terms of temporary exclusions, black Caribbean students and multiracial white/black Caribbean students have a rate of more than 10 per cent - the highest after Gypsy, Roma and Irish Travellers. A similar pattern emerges for fixed-term exclusions.

Debate around the causes of this under-attainment is ongoing, with some blaming institutional racism in school and society (fuelled by unconscious bias), lazy stereotypes in the media and a lack of representation at all levels.

Other voices - notably Tony Sewell, the chair of the government’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities - have stressed the potential impact of factors such as poverty, absent fathers and a culture of “hypermasculinity” on black boys’ average lower attainment levels.

However, David Gillborn, emeritus professor of critical race studies at the University of Birmingham, argues that there are two key issues in schools that contribute here: teachers’ lower expectations of black children; and hypervigilance over their behaviour, which leads to harsher discipline.

“If you look at the vast bulk of research looking at how kids from different ethnic backgrounds are treated by predominantly white teachers, then the overwhelming majority of the work suggests that black students, especially boys, are subjected to more surveillance. They’re watched more closely,” he says.

Gillborn stresses that it is important that those who highlight these issues are not seen as “teacher bashing”.

“This is not your crude BNP-style [British National Party] racist that goes out looking for trouble,” he says. “These are sensitivities and expectations that a lot of white people have, which lead to them working to discipline and control black kids more frequently. They tend to come down on them more harshly and they tend to underestimate what they’re capable of academically, and so that feeds into how they’re treated in the classroom.”

This treatment continues as children move through the system, with black pupils being more likely to be channelled into lower-ability groups and entered for the foundation tier at GCSE, making it more difficult for them to succeed.

Researchers at Stanford University have illustrated how this harsher treatment plays out. They conducted a series of experiments that asked a group of teachers to read about two misbehaviours by a student. The teachers were primed to believe that the student was either black or white, due to them being given a typically “white” or “black” name (such as Jake or Deshawn, respectively).

When the student was seemingly black, teachers endorsed more severe disciplinary responses, particularly for the second offence, and were more likely to believe the student would be suspended in the future.

Another study by the Yale Child Study Center found that these biases are directed at much younger children than previously thought. Researchers using eye-tracking technology found that preschool teachers “show a tendency to more closely observe black students, and especially boys, when challenging behaviours are expected”.

It’s worth noting that much of the experimental research in this area has been conducted in the US, not the UK. But Gillborn says some level of unconscious bias is undoubtedly at play in terms of how behaviour is managed in UK schools.

He points out that the effects of such biases can be exacerbated by “zero-tolerance” discipline policies, which, he says, are often introduced in inner city schools with high black student populations.

In a submission this year to the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, Gillborn and colleagues wrote that supposedly “colour-blind” behaviour policies of this type can actually “discriminate in systemic ways”.

Their submission says: “Although teachers may claim (and sincerely believe) that zero-tolerance policies are applied without fear or favour, in reality they tend to lead to more frequent and harsher sanctions against minoritized students.”

The problem is further compounded by a lack of teacher training in this area, says Gillborn. “It’s perfectly possible to be a qualified teacher and not be aware of these patterns of treatment,” he says.

But what can schools do to counteract all this?

It’s important to note that many schools have already taken steps in the right direction. Writing recently for Tes, Viv Grant, a former headteacher and the founder of Integrity Coaching, said that she was “hopeful” about the progress being made.

“After 30-plus years in education, things feel different,” she wrote. “[School staff] are now recognising that new race equality narratives cannot be written overnight. They are recognising that becoming antiracist is a lifelong commitment, one that has as much to do with decolonising their own minds as it has to do with decolonising the curriculum.”

As for what more schools can do, much has been said about the potential for an increase in black male teachers and school leaders to improve the attainment of black boys, in particular, in the classroom.

A US study found that black students of both sexes were more likely to graduate if they had at least one black teacher in grades 3 to 5 (Year 4 to Year 6 in England), and the effect was highest for boys from low-income backgrounds.

Associate assistant headteacher Craig Cunningham, who is on a two-year placement working in an alternative provision setting as part of school leadership scheme The Difference, says that increased levels of representation in the classroom could improve outcomes for black boys. However, he adds that schools must not automatically place black male teachers in charge of behaviour as a default reaction.

“That, in itself, becomes problematic because what makes you think I’m more qualified to sort behaviour than my white male and female counterparts? The labelling can be disruptive as well,” he says.

Simply having more black teachers in school is not enough, then. But there are other steps that schools can take.

Kay Rufai, an artist and youth worker who runs in-school courses for black youths on the edge of exclusion, exploring mental health and identity, says schools need to become more aware of the differences in how children express themselves and any trauma they have suffered.

Support, not sanctions

Rufai was recently awarded funding from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Arts Council England to run workshops for teachers aimed at improving cultural literacy and interrogating school cultures and practices.

He believes that a focus on restorative and transformative behaviour practices, rather than punitive ones, will help to reduce the loop of negative feedback and cut exclusions.

The educationalist Gus John agrees with this. He mentors 60 young people in schools every year, and says that mentoring can be an effective solution. By showing young people that they have responsibility for setting themselves goals and encouraging them to use their time in school to achieve them, teachers can counteract some of the challenges those pupils are facing.

“I know that it is labour intensive for teachers who have got marking to do and so on,” he says, “but I believe that if schools invested more in supporting children in those kinds of ways…[then] the child could be productively engaged with the learning process.”

Cunningham agrees that mentoring may help, but only if it takes an authentic approach: “When it’s an organic process where the relationship is built with that student and that mentoring capacity can happen because it’s there already, that’s obviously positive. If it’s one that is forced…Children are not stupid, they know when somebody has been inserted into their lives…It has to be an organic process.”

Perhaps more importantly, though, those working in schools need to get used to asking themselves the tough questions about race, he says: looking at whole-school data on detentions, isolation, exclusions and the like and having “brutal conversations” about their own biases and why certain groups are disproportionately affected.

“There has to be an acknowledgement from all staff that we all hold some form of implicit bias,” he says. “I’ve had to look at my biases and how they inform my leadership, my teaching, and once you’ve broken that down [you] start to build that back up and understand why certain things are happening.”

Schools also need to look at their wider policies and how they engage with their local community, Cunningham continues.

“Are [black pupils] able to come into school and leave feeling empowered, or do they just feel like school is this overbearing institution that has stripped them of their identity?”

Irena Barker is a freelance journalist

This article originally appeared in the 6 August 2021 issue under the headline “Tes focus on…racial bias and attainment”