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Jeremy Corbyn with Bristol's deputy mayor Asher Craig (second left) on a visit to the city where he vowed to prioritise black British history lessons in schools

A SCHOOL curriculum teaching pupils about Bristol’s black history is to be launched as a pilot project.

This follows a series of meetings, which took place between three local institutions after a report by the Runnymede Trust highlighted Bristol's "ethnic minority disadvantages", BBC reports.

In the report, it addressed educational inequalities based on the unrepresentativeness of the curriculum, lack of diversity in teaching staff and school leadership and poor engagement with parents.

In addition, Aisha Thomas, assistant principal of City Academy, said a recent meet-up of schools had shown that black history was not taught well enough.

“Just recently [her students] went to Bristol University and had an almost inter-school competition which was looking at ‘what do you know about black history?’

“And what was quite disheartening, in particular for City Academy students, particularly when we are 85% BME, is that those students lost the quiz,” she said.

“They pulled me aside and said ‘Miss, how on earth can we as the ‘black school’ lose? We should have more information than anyone else about what’s happening in Bristol, about what’s happening in our history and our curriculum.”

Much of Bristol’s history came from the transatlantic slave trade, and according to Phil Castang, from Bristol Music Trust, the curriculum would allow "a more equitable representation of black history".

Mr Castang, who is facilitating the project, also said to BBC, it would also provide an "understanding of how black culture and black British culture has shaped our world, both locally in Bristol and more widely in Britain, and globally."

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