As the new school year begins parents are being offered a guide to help them ensure their children’s schools are working actively to prevent racial discrimination. It has been produced by the Centre for Educational Success in partnership with the Black Training and Enterprise Group.

‘Race Equality and Schools: A Guide for Parents and Carers’ follows a previous CES document, ‘Could Do Better! A Report on the Impact of the Race Relations Amendment Act on Secondary Schools’ which, it says, showed some schools were struggling to conform to the minimum legal requirements relating to addressing race equality.

Jeremy Crook, the director of CES, said: “We hope that this guide will raise awareness and encourage parents and carers from all ethnic backgrounds to be more active on this important issue in the future. It is clear that the vast majority of parents are unaware of the legal duty schools have to address race equality and involve parents in the process.”

The new guide outlines the responsibilities schools have, which include the preparation of a written policy for promoting race equality, assessing the impact of such a policy on pupils, staff and parents from different racial groups and monitoring its effect. It also suggests the steps parents can take to support schools in raising educational attainment.