This article focuses on how to improve your curriculum in relation to race. You can, and should, apply similar principles to improve diversity in terms of gender, disability and sexual orientation. Use our curriculum audit for gender and LGBTQ+ inclusivity to help you do this.
Your review should have 3 aims: representation, re-framing and anti-racism
Improving representation and diversity across the curriculum
This is about asking whose stories you tell and who tells these stories.
It's also about making sure pupils who are Black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME) see themselves reflected in your curriculum, all year round.
For example, including black Tudors in history lessons or talking about the Arabic origins of algebra in maths.
Re-framing how certain subjects are taught after examining how they are taught through a western or colonial lens
This is also known as “decolonising the curriculum”.
This isn't necessarily changing what you teach, but how you teach it.
For example, teaching the British Empire as “invading and exploiting” rather than “exploring and settling”.
Teaching explicitly about anti-racism and racism (past and present)
It's important to teach this in a British context, and do this all year round.
For example, teaching about the Bristol bus boycott, not just Rosa Parks.
Consider adapting your curriculum intent to include your commitment to equality and diversity – this needs to be central to your whole curriculum, rather than just an add-on.
Download our subject-specific primary or secondary review tools
Our anti-racism curriculum review tools will help you review all National Curriculum subjects.
The questions and prompts will help you pinpoint where the weaknesses or gaps are in each subject.
You can use the next steps to address these gaps and begin to adapt your curriculum. Use them:
- As a prompt or specific actions while planning your curriculum and lessons
- In CPD sessions to share ideas and start conversations about diversifying your curriculum
- As part of your school development or improvement plan
How to carry out the review and adapt your curriculum
Create a cross-curricular staff working group
- Subject leaders or heads of department should ask the questions and prompts for their subject – they know their curriculum best and will be best placed to make changes
- Create a cross-curricular staff working group who meet regularly and share expertise and ideas. This is especially important for primary schools, where subject leaders aren't necessarily subject specialists. This group should include:
- The subject leader or head of department for each subject
- Any other members of staff who are interested in this work and want to take part. They don't have to be teachers – they just need to be passionate about improving diversity in your curriculum
- This is a big piece of work, so it shouldn't fall to just a few people. Make sure it doesn’t just fall to staff who themselves are BAME – this is everyone’s responsibility
- Certain subjects might want to work more closely together e.g. English and history, maths and science
- When carrying out the review, the working group should look at curriculum maps, short and long-term plans, and sometimes individual lesson plans and resources (you won’t always need to go into this level of detail, but you might want to look at a few examples of lesson plans or resources per unit to get a good idea of how content is taught)
- The working group should also take into account cross-curricular events/days, trips and assemblies
- How often the working group meets is up to you, and will depend on how much time your staff have. Aim for at least once a term, but half-termly would be ideal
Give staff time to educate themselves on anti-racism
This isn’t going to work unless people are engaged and believe this is important. Before carrying out the review, you'll want to improve staff's 'racial literacy'.
- Make sure staff members carrying out the review are well-read on the most important issues using our anti-racist reading lists for staff. Give them time to reflect on this reading and discuss it together before jumping into the review
- Share the following free webinars with staff and give them time to watch the videos and discuss them as a group:
- Challenge Partners – Diversity within the Curriculum with Shalina Patel
- Chiltern Teaching School Alliance – An Inclusive Curriculum, facilitated by Lorraine Hughes
- Direct teachers to look at the NEU and NASUWT resources on anti-racism and decolonising the curriculum. They include justifications and action points
A working group of staff, parents and governors should oversee this work
This group should work alongside any whole-school work you're doing to improve your school's approach to anti-racism, such as a whole school anti-racism audit.
Read our article for more about how to set up a working group and use it to improve your approach to anti-racism.
Include the whole school community and let them know what you're doing
- Consider running an INSET or CPD session for all staff to “kick-off” the review (using the webinars above, or extracts from them, as a starting point) so everyone is engaged and feels involved, not just staff in the working group
- Encourage all staff to feed in suggestions or ideas of what needs to improve, via their subject leader
- Include pupils and parents in these discussions, even if they aren’t in the working group. Tell them you’re going to review your curriculum and why you’re doing it. For a great example of how to do this, see St John and St James' CofE Primary School's anti-racist statement
- Let governors know you're carrying out this work, especially any curriculum link governors. Let them know how they can get involved with the working group if they want to
There's no quick fix
It may take up to a year to do the full review, and once you've completed it, the working group should keep meeting to discuss how it's going and any ways they want to adapt the curriculum further. In a sense, this work will never be "finished" – it's likely to be an ongoing process.
- Your cross-curricular working group might want to meet at the end of each term or half-term (depending on how often they're meeting) to review what’s been taught that term/half-term and how they want to re-frame/teach the content differently the following year – this way the whole review will be completed in 1 year
- Give staff time to get this right and don't expect them to complete the review in their own time. You could consider setting aside all your INSET days for a year for those staff in the working group to dedicate themselves to this work
- Ideally, you'd review all subjects simultaneously. But if time or capacity is limited, good subjects to start with are history, English, RE and geography – this is where the biggest changes may need to be made and where you can add the most value. We’ve set out the subjects within the review tools in a suggested order, but don’t forget to review every subject eventually
Use examples of alternative curriculums to inspire your adapted curriculum
The London Borough of Hackney has developed a Diverse Curriculum. It includes resources that highlight the significance of the black contribution as part of the history of Britain. They're free to access, just sign up using a school email address.
The Black Curriculum offers resources including videos and lesson activities. They also offer arts-based black British history workshops, teacher training and assemblies.
The New York Times has a series of resources that focus on diversifying the curriculum. Many are focused on the US, but some lessons are transferable.
Please note: the Key does not endorse these specific products.
Next steps: support staff to deliver this curriculum
When you've reviewed and adapted your curriculum, you need to support your teachers to be confident delivering it.
- The cross-curricular working group should continue to support staff in delivering the curriculum once they've adapted it
- Use our anti-racist reading lists for staff to help get all teachers up to speed
- Consider staff training – for example:
These are for information only – The Key doesn't endorse any particular training courses or providers.