Month: November 2022

A ‘race and education’ film club: New reflexive possibilities

Posted on by School of Education University of Bristol

Blog by Lucy Wenham, Senior Lecturer in Education at University of Bristol  Janet Orchard, Associate Professor at University of Bristol  Alexandra Brown, Philosophy and Religious Studies Secondary School Teacher  Phyllis Curtis-Tweed, Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs at Bermuda College  Merryn Evans, Head of Religion and Worldviews at Redland Green School  Saima Saleh, Head of RE/Religion and Worldviews at Ravenscote Junior School

In England, as with so many settings around the globe, researchers have long-debated how concepts of racism interplay with education, whether at the systemic or classroom level (see for example Gillborn, 1995). Race and purported levels of racism remain a contentious issue, causing governments to commission reports and researchers to scrutinise their limitations and implications of racism for education (Tikly, 2022). These issues are as pertinent as ever, perhaps even more so, given heightened xenophobia following the Brexit campaigns, and schools accused by government ministers of ignoring their duty to be politically impartial by supporting the ‘Black Lives Matter’ (BLM) movement. Teachers sit in the thick of it.

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“Leaky spaces for Climate Change Education are not enough for Bristol’s young people”

Posted on by School of Education University of Bristol

city hall, BristolBlog by Mrs Michelle Graffagnino, Senior Lecturer in Education, and Dr Nicola Warren-Lee, Senior Lecturer in Education.

After attending a Bristol Education Partnership Climate Change event at City Hall in Bristol, Nicola and Michelle recall the brilliance of the student contributions, the passion of the senior leaders and the ambiguity of the attending DfE representative.

City Hall in Bristol is impressive.  Even more so on a crisp autumnal morning full of enthusiastic school students armed with posters, and a cohort of beginning geography teachers ready to take their first steps into a microteaching event on climate change curriculum improvement in October 2022. The Bristol Education Partnership (BEP) had organised a climate conference to showcase individual schools’ climate change initiatives and to bring students to take part in workshops on different areas of climate action.  The School of Education, PGCE Secondary Geography group were there to support discussions on how the curriculum that students follow could be changed, improved and linked together. (more…)