Nursery World - To the point: Know how to fight racism

When I was first working in schools, in the late 1980s, there was lots of discussion about how early years education could promote social justice and combat racism. Much of that work was cheaply attacked and ridiculed by the media: endless stories of how 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' had been banned, blackboards replaced by chalkboards, and so on.

I mean no disrespect to the many organisations and individuals who are actively campaigning for racial justice in the early years by observing that the profile of this issue has fallen over the last decade. So, it is welcome to see early years trainer and author Jane Lane team up with Lord Ouseley (former chair of the Commission for Racial Equality) to campaign for the revised EYFS to include more on promoting racial justice.

They argue that there should be stronger requirements to monitor incidents of racial discrimination, and that without all the supplementary materials that were included in the original EYFS framework, practitioners will lack information on how to promote racial equality and tackle discrimination.

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