Teaching To Transform Pathways Programme

Hey everyone, welcome back to Blogs with Fidele.

Earlier this month, I (along with the rest of the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre Team at DMU) attended the House of Lords regarding the Teaching to Transform Programme.

Teaching to Transform Programme is a project that’s ran by the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre, also in partnership with LiFE Multi-Academy. The programme was inspired from the unfinished elements of the MacPherson report, in honour of Stephen Lawrence as the National Curriculum had failed to reflect diverse, multi-cultural societies. For the time being the programme is working as a pilot study, and currently only implemented in schools in and around Leicester.

The programme has been running for over 6 years, and concentrates on building racial literacy, and reinforces social awareness on aspects such as vocabulary used in schools. The programme essentially embeds anti-racist practices.

Being at the event and listening to the speakers, I found it inspirational and motivating to see how the programme had such a significant impression. Seeing how the Programme had already impacted schools in Leicester was incredible, especially hearing the impact it had on the younger generation. 

Hearing the Stephen Lawrence Ambassadors, who are as young as 14/15, talk about the Teaching to Transform programme and how their role as ambassadors has significantly changed their time at highschool was incredible to hear. They touched on why it was important to promote anti-racist procedures and how in doing so, their school had become welcoming and inclusive to multi-ethnic communities.

It’s crucial that young people feel comfortable and safe within social settings and aren’t alienised or discriminated against for being of a different ethnic background.

The programme also encourages teachers to become anti-racist educators, which is exceptional as creating anti-racist environment starts from young people having role models to look up to as well as peers to learn from. Reinforcing such agendas requires the help from everyone - from teachers to students.

It was such an honour to have been invited to the House of Lords, that I wanted to come on here and tell you all all about it and how I hope the programme soon operates nationally, across schools all over the UK.

Thank you all for reading, until next time🤎