BNP Teachers

Mark Walker made this Freedom of Information request to Hull City Council

The request was successful.

From: Mark Walker

30 December 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

By letter of 30 September 2009, The Secretary of State Ed Balls
appointed Maurice Smith to enquire into the "promotion of racism in
schools". Part of the review is aimed at determining whether
members of the British National Party (BNP) should be allowed to
work as teachers or in the wider school workforce.

At present there are a number of measures and safeguards in place
in place to protect children and young people in schools from
racially motivated discrimination and the promotion of political
doctrines that advocate discrimination and promote racist views.
These are:

• The requirement on schools to have equal opportunity policies

• The duty upon schools to promote racial equality

• Their duty to promote community cohesion

• The duty on governing bodies, headteachers and local authorities
to forbid the teaching of partisan political activities in schools

• The powers of the GTC (England) regarding suitability of
registration and where teacher conduct could bring the profession
into disrepute

I would like you to provide me with evidence of how effective these
measures are including whether they are sufficient to maintain
trust in the profession and protect children and young people.

Please provide the following information under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000.

1) What evidence is there that schools’ equal opportunity policies
are effective in combating racism?
2) What are schools in your area doing to promote racial equality
and promote community cohesion? Examples of measures deemed to be
good practice and recognised as being successful would be useful.
3) Can you provide me with any evidence that the measures listed
above have been effective (if this has not already been done)?
4) Are further measures required to either maintain trust in the
teaching profession or protect children and young people?

Yours sincerely

Mark Walker
Solidarity Trade Union
www.solidaritytradeunion.org

Link to this

From: Dearing James
Hull City Council

5 January 2010

Dear Mr Walker,

Freedom of Information Act 2000 - Information Request - 0005/10

We acknowledge receipt of your information request received on 04/01/10
which is being processed according to the Freedom of Information Act
(2000).

The legislation allows us 20 working days to respond which takes us to
29/01/10. There are some circumstances under which this deadline may be
extended legally but we will inform you as soon as we know if these
apply. We are experiencing increasing volumes of requests which we are
endeavouring to resource. Unfortunately until these resources are in
place we may fail to meet some deadlines, however please be assured that
we will endeavour to provide responses as soon as possible.

We are required to advise you that if you wish to complain about our
response in any way, then this should initially be done through the
Council's internal complaints procedure. Please contact Lynne Bird, Legal
Services, The Guildhall, Hull HU1 2AA to register your complaint. If you
are not satisfied with the outcome of the internal complaints procedure
then you may take your complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office,
the government body established to enforce the legislation. Their details
are Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, telephone
01625 545 700, Email: [1][email address], web site
[2]www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk.

The Council's Freedom of Information Policy, which includes the charging
policy, is available on request and from the web site
[3]www.hullcc.gov.uk. Also available is a booklet on `Accessing
Information from Hull City Council' which explains how to request
information and your rights (according to the Data Protection Act 1998 and
The Freedom of Information Act 2000).

Yours sincerely,

Information Governance Team
Hull City Council
[email address]
Tel: 01482 300300

show quoted sections

Link to this

From: Information Governance
Hull City Council

19 February 2010

Attachment EVALUATION REPORT.PDF.pdf
226K Download View as HTML

Dear Mr Walker

Freedom of Information Act 2000 - Information Request - 000005/10

With regard to your Freedom of Information request received on 4^th
January 2010, please find our response attached and below. I apologise
for the delay in sending you our final response and hope this has not
inconvenienced you too much. We are currently recruiting staff to address
our resource problem and wish to assure you that service standards will be
improved.

1) What evidence is there that schools' equal opportunity policies are
effective in combating racism?

Hull City Council holds no recorded information which provides evidence
that schools equal opportunities policies are effective in combating
racism.

The number of racist incidents in Hull Schools has dropped in primary
schools over the past 3 years and only increased slightly within other
schools. There are a number of contributory factors to this, including
increased use of Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL),
restorative practices and increased knowledge of the Race Equality and
Community Cohesion agenda. This was evidenced by increased numbers of
requests from schools for support in implementing these agendas and also
in developing and revising policies.

2) What are schools in your area doing to promote racial equality and
promote community cohesion? Examples of measures deemed to be good
practice and recognised as being successful would be useful.

We have a very successful Schools Linking Programme which is now in its
second year. This involved 20 schools in 2008-2009 and 26 schools in
2009-2010. The aim of the project is to bring pupils from
different backgrounds together in order to explore issues around identity,
diversity and shared values. Last year, the evaluation of the project
identified shifts in attitudes and increased levels of confidence in the
young people who took part.

Hull schools and East Riding schools are funded through a successful bid
to Government Office through the Prevent agenda.

A number of secondary schools in the city have adopted a zero tolerance
approach to racism and have staged whole year events in response to
incidents.

All schools are undertaking an equalities and cohesion audit through a
series of area meetings.

Ten schools were involved in Global Schools Award which put in place
measures to implement global perspectives in the curriculum and issues
around identity and diversity.

Three schools are currently involved in UNICEF Rights Respecting Schools
Award. Safer Schools Partnerships is being established and community
tension etc is discussed in operational and strategic meetings.

3) Can you provide me with any evidence that the measures listed above
have been effective (if this has not already been done)?

Please find attached an `Evaluation Report'.

The three schools mentioned in question 2 (UNICEF Rights Respecting
Schools Award) have Ofsted inspection reports as examples of good practice
in promoting community cohesion.

A survey of all year 9 students across the city exploring bullying,
evidenced that very few of these students had experienced racist
bullying. This piece of work is not completed yet but these are
preliminary findings.

4) Are further measures required to either maintain trust in the teaching
profession or protect children and young people?

Further audit from the local authority will ensure effectiveness of
reporting mechanisms. The audit will be undertaken over the next term and
results will be published in the autumn on Hull City Councils internal
intranet and widely circulated to schools.

We are required to advise you that if you wish to complain about our
response in any way, then this should initially be done through the
Council's internal complaints procedure. Please contact Lynne Bird, Legal
Services, The Guildhall, Hull HU1 2AA to register your complaint. If you
are not satisfied with the outcome of the internal complaints procedure
then you may take your complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office,
the government body established to enforce the legislation. Their details
are Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, telephone
01625 545 700, Email: [1][email address], web site
[2]www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk.

The Council's Freedom of Information Policy, which includes the charging
policy, is available on request and from the web site
[3]www.hullcc.gov.uk. Also available is a booklet on `Accessing
Information from Hull City Council' which explains how to request
information and your rights (according to the Data Protection Act 1998 and
The Freedom of Information Act 2000).

We hope that you will be satisfied with our response and should you
require any further information then please do not hesitate to contact
us.

Yours sincerely

Information Governance Team

Hull City Council

show quoted sections

Link to this

Things to do with this request

Anyone:
Hull City Council only: