My initial involvement with ‘DARPLing’ was at the DARPL Roadshow in Penmaenmawr in 2025. It became a new verb for me. On that day, Chantelle and Leon spoke passionately about the importance of anti-racist teaching and inspired us with real context and examples for how and why. While I have friends who work in Diversity and Inclusion departments in the public sector and had learnt about their work, I had not really engaged with anti-racist learning in the education sphere. In retrospect, my focus and learning should have started closer to home – with the children in our school. I had not considered the privilege I have experienced and how this skewed my perspective. Completing the ELS has been transformative in terms of my outlook and approach to education in our school.
I have gained a great deal from the DARPL ELS course, some gave specific examples of actions I can take in school and some illuminated wider points about anti-racism in general. I have gained confidence in being able to talk about anti-racism with colleagues and have started to put my learning into practice and leadership.
The first DARPL ELS session in Bangor, was led by the Show Racism the Red Card team, was one that provided us with lots of useful thought-provoking articles and scenarios, and we touched on the imperative to decolonise the curriculum for the first time, which was built on in depth later in the course. During the introductory session, we discussed carrying out action research and reflective enquiry and learning conversations to determine the experiences within our learning community. It was at this session that we were made aware of Mai and Whitlock’s article about how to respond with compassion when someone is hurt by racism, an article that has already proved useful in school.
When Rachel Clarke of Apex Educate spoke, I identified at that point, I was in the ‘learning /growth’ zones in terms of my own progress towards becoming anti-racist. I recognise I am privileged and I know racism is a current problem in Wales and the World. The message that anti-racism can’t just be a ‘tick-box’ or short-term plan, once-and-done thing and that having a Black History Month in school is not sufficient really resonated with me, I hadn’t questioned that before. I recognise that developing an anti-racist culture is about checking in with families and building relationships. The ELS session on Equality and Equity was equally important and I have used some of the resources mentioned in subsequent staff training. I also liked Rachel’s use of Beyonce’s quote: “It’s not about perfection; it’s about purpose.”
I think the session led by Karen Brooke of Oshun Education was my favourite and most useful session in turning learning into practice. I really liked Karen’s approach and the cohort had some great discussions on the day. This was particularly apt because one of the key messages was the need to discuss racism openly. If we don’t discuss it in school, more racism can exist. This is a message I have taken back to school and have shared with colleagues. If we want to create ethical citizens of Wales and the World, we need to decolonise the curriculum. Initially, I found the prospect of decolonising the curriculum unit by unit daunting but Karen’s examples and encouragement made this a really enjoyable and fruitful activity. We’ve still got a long way to go in our school but I am confident I know how to approach the discussions with staff. e.g. our Year 4s and 5s study the Victorians in school; I feel there is scope to make a lot of meaningful changes to our approach to this topic by incorporating different starting points, different viewpoints and a wider and more diverse series of examples.
One of the key things that came through all of the sessions led by all of the speakers but particularly Chantelle herself and Louise from The Black Curriculum was that what needs to happen before changes are made is that staff need to be educated and trained and we need to know our learning communities. There is no point changing the curriculum if staff are unaware of why. For this reason and to this end, all staff have watched and discussed the DARPL Teacher Series videos on the DARPL website. Anti-racism will form part of our school improvement plan next academic year. We now have a equity and diversity link governor and our group of pupils has been established. Next steps are professional learning and ‘DARPLing’ for our whole-school staff.
Completing the DARPL Enhanced Leadership Series has been a really worthwhile experience for me personally and I am confident it will have a positive impact on the children and staff in our school as a result too.
What are you planning to do next in the DARPL Community of Practice?
To find out more about joining DAN (follow this link): Advocacy Network – DARPL
To find out more about attending ELS (follow this link): Enhanced Leadership Series – DARPL
