Black parents, private school will not save your child from racism. I should know, I suffered at one

The problem is rife across the education sector. Presenting it as a state education issue creates the impression that it's possible to purchase your way out of prejudice. It isn't

During my first year of primary school, I stood out quite a bit. I was taller than the other kids, the oldest child and the only black pupil in the room. If I got into an argument with another pupil I would be the only one sent into an after school detention. When calling my name in the register, they would snigger at my "ridiculous" African name, rebuke me for wearing braids and openly question whether or not a "black girl like [myself]" would be capable of going to university later on in life.

In my last year of secondary school, my school put on a Christmas tableau, painting a student’s face black in order for her to resemble what they thought Balthazar must have looked like. I've been in private education all my life.

My experiences are not unique in Britain, and in research for this article, I have talked to countless former black school students who faced disproportionate punishment and verbal abuse from teachers in the classroom. Indeed, recent reporting suggests that black kids are more likely than most to face discrimination in school and many are fighting hard against this.

Campaign group No More Exclusions is trying to open up more conversation about strategies to combat prejudiced suspensions, particularly for black Caribbean children, who are over-represented in the statistics on permanent exclusion, while both black Caribbean and black African children are over-represented in figures on fixed period exclusion. We have the data but, as Kuba Shand-Baptiste, a columnist and commissioning editor at The Independent, recently wrote: “the penny should have dropped long before now.” Indeed, in his recent book Natives, Akala writes about how commonplace racism in schooling was way back in the 1970s. We’ve known about racism in schooling for years, but yet little to nothing has changed.

Because of this, there is an increasing tendency for black parents and campaigners to suggest that private schools may be the answer. In 2003, lamenting what he saw to be anti-private school bias amongst some universities, Trevor Phillips remarked: “A large number of parents from ethnic minorities…go into debt to send their children to independent schools because they believe that it will help their children escape the disadvantage that they might otherwise face in the state system.” And late last year in a piece for The Independent that swiftly went viral, black PR consultant, Diana Young, suggested that in order to get away from the “prejudice, stereotyping and bias” black children face in state schools, private schools could be the answer.

It is true that if you have been to private school you will more than likely have a societal advantage over those who have not attended. Indeed, statistics suggest that those who attend private schools are 22 times more likely to go to a top British university. However, as recent research into the educational strategies of the black British middle class by London’s Institute of Education suggests, things get more complex when you look at the experiences of black pupils in private schools.

Their findings show that black pupils, due to being an extremely small minority in private schools, are more likely to be left behind by their teachers than white private school students. As part of the research, one parent described how it was for her black son:

“In the final year, the expectations from some of his teachers, you picked up that they said ‘Well you got a pass, so what more do you want?’” This aligns with other data from the government’s department for Business Innovation and Skills, which among other shocking facts, suggests that black children in all schools are the most likely to get their A-level grades under-predicted. This of course affects the quality of university that black students attend, perhaps one of the reasons black students are under-represented at Russell Group universities.

It is worth noting that every school I attended from the age of five to 18, in both southern and northern areas of Britain, are private schools that have been ranked “Outstanding” by Ofsted or “excellent” in several categories by the Independent Schools Inspectorate. Indeed, so has Oundle School, where in 2018, a teacher was found to have used overtly racist language, including stating that he did not “want to teach blackies and chinkies in [his] classroom.”

I’ve spoken to black people who’ve been to all sorts of schools in Britain, including those whose parents were hopeful that upon obtaining a scholarship or bursary to a private school, their children would have a better experience. All suffered some form of racism while at school. Presenting it as a state school problem creates the impression that one can purchase one’s way out of racism. By narrowing in on primary and secondary schooling instead of conducting investigations that look at the entirety of Britain’s education sector, this perpetual cycle of condemning a few state schools while ignoring the racism that persists throughout many schools in the UK will continue.

Black students are not being left entirely behind, after all, data from the Office for Students suggests that they’re more likely to attend university than their white peers. Although when they get to university, they are less likely to get a good degree than their white university mates, more likely to quit and have a relatively high likelihood of experiencing racial harassment on campus. However, what happens to you during your formative years can stick and it is possible that by not doing enough to stamp out racism in primary and secondary schooling, generations of black kids are growing up with significant trauma.

The first sector-wide strategy that could be adopted is ensuring that all those who want to become teachers have to take equality and diversity training while taking an undergraduate or postgraduate teaching qualification.

With that, at least there would be some way of stopping teachers being racist towards pupils, like repeatedly asking black pupils if “English is their first language” or insulting afro-textured hair. Another could be having institutions like Ofsted and the Independent Schools Inspectorate evaluating schools for how they deal with issues of race and racism, particularly in a climate where it seems more and more racist bullying is taking place. We need tangible change now. As we enter a new decade, we need to fight and amplify student stories and concerns so that by 2040 at least, things will have finally changed for black students.