The day started badly at the primary school where Mike Walters is a deputy head. The morning after the referendum to leave the EU, staff opened the classroom doors to find an angry confrontation taking place between parents.
“One mother was swearing and shouting at another to get out because the people had voted for it,” Mr Walters said. “The other parent was clutching her child, terrified and not really understanding what was going on. It was very nasty and unpleasant, and people just stood around gaping as no-one knew what to do.
“We ushered in the children as quickly as we could and the parent was threatened with the police. Eventually, it all calmed down. Exactly what we had feared following the referendum was now happening in our school playground.”
The offending parent had been angry that her child had not got into the secondary school of her choice, when children of immigrants had through local authority proximity rules. Now that the country had voted to leave the EU she wanted the immigrant families to be removed to secure her own child’s place. The result of the referendum had given her a voice, said Mr Walters.
“The issues in our area have never really been around immigration, rather the fact that new houses are being built but the infrastructure is lacking, with not enough schools or other services,” Mr Walters said. “When people are angry and feel they’re treated unfairly they want to lash out. The referendum campaign had emboldened them to say what they hadn’t dared to before.
“We take a very dim view of this sort of behaviour and the theme of assembly that morning was quickly changed to reflect the messages we needed, as a school, to get across – that this is a tolerant, compassionate community and we don’t judge or abuse people because of their accent or colour of their skin.”
The experience of Mike Walters’ school, which is located in an urban, racially mixed area, was repeated in many around the country in the weeks after the referendum. Mostly, it has been verbal attacks and abuse. Pupils who were once friendly and untroubled by the ethnic origins of their classmates were now telling their friends to go home, or asking if their parents would be deported soon.
It is not clear how many incidents have taken place in schools as these often go unreported or are dealt with within the confines of the school. But it is clear that there has been an increase in racism and xenophobic incidents since June 23. In the days following the referendum it was reported there was a 57 per cent rise in racial hate crimes, though cases involving schools and children were not broken down in the figures.
Sarah Griggs, head of Valley View Primary School in Leeds, said she was forced to have conversations with a number of pupils, who had made remarks about children from overseas.
“We have not yet experienced any bullying or physically abusive incidents but we heard children repeating things they had heard in the community, so we’ve been on alert,” she said. “There was a strong perception among many that the referendum result meant that things were going to change.
“Our pupils are generally respectful and caring of each other, but the vote meant that certain lines had now been smudged. Some pupils felt confused about the messages that were coming out. It is hard for primary schools because we’re dealing with young children who hear things, but they are not yet politically aware.”
One child commented on the pressures immigrants put on the NHS, but did not apply this to his friends from overseas: “We had to have a few individual conversations with pupils, not to contradict what their parents were saying or to tell them people in the community were wrong, but to make them think about what they had heard and to apply their own judgement.”
This year, the school plans to embark on the Go Givers project, a national citizenship scheme for schools to help them identify, research and address a cause or concern that they want to do something about by developing an awareness-raising campaign, fundraising or taking direct action. At Valley View, pupils will examine racism and how it can be tackled in their school.
“In a community such as ours, the tone of what happens in the community is often set by older pupils in the local secondary,” Ms Griggs added. As part of their Go Givers campaign, she plans to send her pupils to speak to students in the local secondary school to get across important messages, as well producing and selling anti-racist rubber bracelets.
Elsewhere, Ms Griggs is also concerned that the Erasmus project might end. The school currently has links with six schools across Europe and has organised trips to Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, among others.
“I remember how the children were amazed to see a Tesco in the Czech Republic. It really brought home to them what globalisation meant. For some it is their only opportunity to travel to some countries. Their families would never consider going on holiday to Bulgaria or Poland. They get so much out of the Erasmus trips.”
Reports of tensions in schools and a rise in bullying incidents led Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, to write to David Cameron, then still the prime minister, urging him to assure pupils from the EU of their continuing status in the UK.
Mr Hobby said children and young people from overseas needed “better assurance that they will be able to complete their school education without interruption; that they and their families remain welcome and valued members of the communities they call home”.
He added: “Our schools are the places in which we shape our future as a nation. Our teachers and school leaders can help young people make sense of dramatic changes and build their own plans. To do this, we need clarity, swiftly. Please do not ignore the impact of the EU referendum result on the next generation.”
As a further move, in July, a group of 37 heads and educationalists submitted an open letter to Justine Greening, the new secretary of state for education, calling on her to re-introduce citizenship, RE and PSHE as statutory subjects.
The letter noted that the referendum “raised deep questions about identity and belonging for many young people, for which an increasingly narrow academic curriculum has left them ill-equipped. In addition to acquiring knowledge, young people need to successfully develop conflict resolution, decision-making skills, self-regulation, self-respect, negotiation and respect for those with different beliefs and values”.
It added: “Schools provide an important space for dialogue, where opinions can be expressed, respected and evaluated. While we are aware of the many pressing matters for your attention, we ask you to make time to listen to existing good practice in spiritual, moral, social and cultural education from the religious education, citizenship and PSHE professional communities. We call on government to enable teachers to continue the good work of asking challenging questions, acknowledging the discomforting nature of some of the answers, and promoting a vision of our young people as global and European citizens.”
At Holy Apostles CE Primary School, in Cheltenham, instilling a tolerant ethos is a focus all the time, said Gareth Davies, the headteacher. Three quarters of pupils at the Cheltenham school are of White British origin, with the rest coming from a range of eastern European, Black and Asian backgrounds.
“Most children here are first or second generation British-born,” Mr David said. “Bullying and abuse were not a feature post-referendum and I would hope that tolerance for all is endemic in our school.
“Schools need to have policies in place all the time emphasising their ethos, rather than reacting to events after they have happened. Our school has a Christian ethos but children learn about all religions. PSHE is part of our curriculum and we have a PSHE lead in school who monitors what the school is doing in that respect.”
Pupils at Holy Apostles attended an assembly around the time of the referendum which discussed how what is in the news can make people react and behave. Although there was a non-explicit allusion to Brexit, the message was that external forces and the actions of others can make people react and behave in a way children might find unsettling and wrong, but this was at odds with the ethos of the school.
Often schools cannot anticipate what will happen, but Mr Davies believes that school policies on issues such as racism and bullying should be updated constantly.
“Some schools are now being forced to review how they do things to reflect recent incidents, but really this needs to be done in schools as we go along,” he said. “We have entered new waters and we must be ready to deal with what comes our way.”
- Dorothy Lepkowska is a freelance education journalist.