I happened to catch sight of the Independent on Sunday’s front page story on the complex problem of racism in schools highlighted in Lord Adonis’s study. One paragraph caught my eye:

” The report recommends a campaign aimed at the entire school community to address the question of how black children are treated. It says the 20 worst-performing local authorities and 100 worst-performing schools for exclusion gaps must be supported to change their attitudes towards black pupils.”

Now not surprisingly having worked on the National Healthy Schools Programme (“to reduce health inequalities, promote social inclusion and raise educational standards”), itself a school-wide approach, my mind was taken back to that as a possible model for such a campaign in schools. Whats-more my former boss and head of healthy schools, Marilyn Toft, left in 2004 to become Director of the Behaviour and Attendance Strand of the KS3 strategy at the DfES. Here surely then is an invaluable source of experience, which will be put to good use?