Young women accuse Sheffield schools of systemic racism and say council must act

The young women made a powerful call for change during a meeting of Sheffield City Council’s education, children and families policy committee (June 21). They accused the council of failing to protect people of colour working in education, including school heads and teaching staff, as well as students.

Councillors and a senior officer accepted that they need to step up their action on the issues raised. They asked the group to meet them in order to look at the problems and find a way forward.

The criticism comes just after concerns were voiced by a group of anti-racist campaigners that the 43 recommendations of the Sheffield Race Equality Commission report published last July have failed to be put into place quickly enough by the council and other key city institutions.

The young women spoke during a section of the meeting that allows public questions. They said that non-white school headteachers working in the city are not treated with the same respect as white headteachers, linking it to systemic racism in the city education system that also affects teachers and students.

The group asked if incidences of racism would be swept under the carpet, what the council is doing to support women of colour in senior positions in schools, how systemic racism in education is being challenged and what anti-racism training councillors and staff have.

Conversation

New council director of strategic children’s services, Meredith Dixon Teasdale, said that it was only her third day in the job but offered an open invitation for anyone working in schools to raise issues with her.

She said: “Schools have a responsibility for their employees, not the council, so it is a different world from what it was a number of years ago when local authorities had responsibility for teachers and headteachers in schools.

“I think that quite clearly, from the questions and from what you’re saying, that you don’t feel we are doing enough, so what I am saying at the moment is that we are looking to chairs of governors to provide that support. (But) we need to be in that space more.

“I am happy to have that conversation and work out what we can do better. ”

Committee chair Coun Dawn Dale, who served on the Race Equality Commission, said: “It doesn’t feel great that you’re having to come here and hold us to account but it is absolutely right that you do.” She said that the council’s new way of working is co-production of services with people who have lived experience of particular issues and urged the group to work with the council.

One of the group, Fatima Salim, said: “You keep talking in the future tense but you need to do more and institutionalised racism has been around for decades and I feel the Sheffield education system hasn’t improved in the last tens of years.

Diversity

“The fact that there’s only four headteachers that are people of colour and they’re not even protected, they’re not even respected as much as white headteachers.

“You keep telling me you’re going to protect them and you encourage diversity but there’s not even diversity in this room. I’ve brought the diversity with me.

“We have to come here and address it with you. You just keep giving us these answers where you’ve just repeated yourself a billion times with the exact same policies that you want to do that you’ve probably said in a million council meetings before – I feel none of your words have value.”

She asked: “I have brought my nephew, he’s only three months old. How am I supposed to tell him he is being protected by you guys and there is no confidence in anything you’ve done and not handled decisions properly. What are you going to do right now?”

Another member of the group said it was not the job of 18-to-20-year-olds to come to tell councillors about issues, it was the job of councillors to get out into communities and find out for themselves.

Coun Maleiki Hybe said that he agreed with her and added: “I am here to say we are all 100 per cent accountable regardless of what happens in Sheffield, we are 100 per cent accountable for every headteacher, every child in Sheffield and every individual as well. You guys elected us, we work for you.”

Complaints

Coun Paul Turpin said that a senior leader who is no longer with the council had on at least three occasions put in complaints against individuals who had raised concerns about racism, turning the complaint against them. He said that other senior leaders should have done something to stop that happening.

Coun Turpin added that there had been exchanges of thousands of emails over a period of eight months between the council and Mercia academy trust over just one school, which shows that the council can get involved with academies when it wants to.

He pledged to do what he could to help make changes.

Coun Mohammed Mahroof said: “I was at this council as a senior officer many years ago and the number of courses we had to go on and the number of reports that were done, and the number of actions that came out of that were probably not a lot at all.

“You’re probably the fourth generation, you’re sat here and you’ve still got the issues of 40 years ago that we’re still talking about, so somewhere along the line we still haven’t got it right.”

He said that had been very reluctant to sit on the Racial Equality Commission because “I didn’t want to be part of something that’s just another piece of paper, another report that’s done and another initiative that we start.

“Forty years on, we need to move on quite considerably from where we are at the present time.”

Coun Nighat Basharat said that she is afraid young people will lose hope. She added: “For you guys to come and share this, as Mohammed (Coun Mahroof) mentioned it’s ongoing. To be honest it’s heartbreaking.”

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