Peterborough Citizens Racial Justice in Education relaunches as the It's Not Banter! Campaign
Peterborough Citizens Racial Justice in Education campaign relaunches as the It's Not Banter! Campaign
When Peterborough Citizens was founded in 2022, our members collectively listened to 10,516 people across the city and found racial justice in education was a leading problem in the city.
In the autumn term of 2023, member institutions listened to staff, students and parents who told us that racialised discrimination is experienced in three key ways…
Student to student
“One black boy was beaten up by 14 white boys…”
Racialised bullying goes unresolved.
Staff to student
Students reported racially stereotyped by staff by being called a popular Muslim name.
The use racialised language by teachers (unintentionally or intentionally) exists and can impact students self esteem.
Staff to parent
“I felt spoken down to and left no room for engagement.”
Disciplinary processes disproportionately impact black and Asian students. Parents sometimes feel unheard.
When analysing the response we noticed a big pattern “It was just a bit of banter, sir.” “Ah I was only joking!” “Lighten up, it was just a joke.”
In January 2024 when asking decision makers to commit to mandatory anti-racist staff training we heard “Why this training over all others? I don’t have the budget to source mandatory staff training.” and teachers said “I wish I could create resources to engage the students but I have no time in the day. I’m already doing too much.”
So we found a solution, we pivoted the campaign to openly address the prevalent issue of prejudice being seen as ‘banter’ and asked everyone we knew and could find already doing this work to partner with us. Share their resources so their great work can ripple out beyond their four walls across the city.
“I saw someone’s race being ‘joked’ about. I laughed along because I didn’t want to be excluded from the group. It wasn’t ok.”
It will be the It’s Not Banter! Toolkit of pooled resources donated by institutions across the city, we’ll meet on October 23rd 2024 to review, feedback and commit to using them and all resources will be available from December 2024 for schools to implement from January 2025.