What schools can do to celebrate 2023 Black History Month

Yes, yes I know that there should be no need for a Black History Month – instead Black history would be embedded in every school's curriculum, and it would be obvious that Black people and their history are - for better or worse - completely embedded in British history and in the everyday British experience. 

Sadly, we don't live in an ideal world and most of our children are not taught this inclusive, honest history.  It's quite the opposite, we are currently under a UK government that doesn’t even think Black History should be a mandatory part of the national history curriculum ¹ .  The consequences of this are staggering, not only are a generation of children ( of all races) leaving school unaware of fundamental parts of UK history but it also contributes to Black people not feeling part of British society as a whole, with a just released report  from  Cambridge University  finding that the majority of Black Britons do not  feel proud to  be Black British. No-one Black would be surprised to hear these findings, but the fact is, we are on our fourth-generation of a major Black British presence in the UK, something is really going wrong in this state of affairs.

We all know that education is the answer to so many ills of society and  one powerful tool the Black community can wield to tell our stories is school is October’s Black History Month. All schools should use this once-a-year opportunity as a chance to celebrate Black culture and learn about Black history.  

But  where do you start with Black history? Definitely not with slavery,  as Black history of course pre dates slavery.  This is a month where British children could learn about the triumphs of Black civilisation, such as the great kingdom of Benin which  was said to be one of the most beautiful and best-planned cities in the world, -  “ the city is wealthy and industrious. It is so well governed that theft is unknown and the people live in such security that they have no doors to their houses” ²

In contrast , London at the same time is described by a  professor of English at the University of Virginia, , as being a city of “thievery, prostitution, murder, bribery and a thriving black market ”. How about that for blowing children's minds wide open!

However Black History in schools should definitely include slavery. Contrary to the belief prevalent in  many African heritage parents, it’s still so important for the greatest indignity to human beings, the transatlantic chattel slave trade, to be taught in schools. The problem actually is, to paraphrase the historian David Olusoga, that we don’t talk about slavery enough! Consider this contrast  - how much do we all know about World Wars 1 and 2 -  the battlefields, the victors, the vanquished, the causes and consequences,  the compensation that some of the victims received?  Then ask yourself this -  how many slave revolts can you name? How many achievements of enslaved people can you name? how many slave plantations can you name? How many apologies and reparations to enslaved people have been given?

I am personally tremendously proud of my enslaved ancestors – who am I am privileged enough to be able to name  through the wonders of modern genealogy)  and I believe that learning about their resilience and resistance (along with their suffering)  is a necessary  part of our children's education.

As you might imagine a month isn’t long at all to pack in all this (especially as half-term cuts into it) and unfortunately, many schools across Britain are doing very little to nothing at all to celebrate Black History Month. I can think of many reasons why this may be  but one reason is certainly that so many schools I come across (particularly in the independent sector)  have very un-diverse teaching staff, in stark contrast to the UK society at large and also sometimes, in complete contrast to the ethnic make up of the student population.  

A few years ago, my daughters’ school (fee-paying junior school, North London, very few Black students) was one of these schools that didn’t celebrate BHM or have an inclusive curriculum. However, I am so happy to report that after complaints from a united group of Black parents - stirred by the Black Lives Matter movement - complaints which were listened to and acted upon by an engaged teaching staff,  the school had a complete turnaround and now runs what I consider a best-in-class Black History Month and an inclusive, de-colonised  school curriculum. This new curriculum is to the benefit of all the students and the school  is simply thriving off this refreshed curriculum and indeed refreshed learning environment.  As a result, I feel like I am in a valuable position to share some details on what the school does for Black History Month and also some general pointers as to what your children’s school could be doing for Black History Month.   

One point to stress at the outset, is that the need to educate schools on how best to teach our children takes emotional labour and time from us as parents -  the schools are meant to be the educators!  These are schools that we pay our tax monies  – or school fees to -  we should feel empowered to demand better customer service!  I was happy to assist my daughter’s school  but I must stress, it was more about us explaining the vital importance of diversity and how the school was lacking. The detail and the content were left to the educators who really took the baton and ran with it (to the extent they now have black and brown  coloured plasters in the sick bay, and school play characters called Kehinde!).

As I said at the start, we don’t live in an ideal world. But we all try our hardest to make the world as perfect as possible for our kids. I hope these ten-pointers help you do just that for Black History Month.