NATIONAL UNION of Students (NUS) PRESIDENT Shakira Martin has called out a school in Sidcup after her children had been victims of alleged racial abuse.
Martin, who is from Lewisham and moved to Sidcup four years ago, told The Voice of numerous incidents which allegedly took place at Sherwood Park Primary School, where her daughters Kai'shay, 7, and Kiara, 5, faced racial discrimination.
“I moved my daughters to Sherwood Park Primary School in September 2018 and I was totally aware that my area is predominately white and the likelihood of the school lacking in diversity was probable,” she says. “But that wasn’t a deterrent for me to not send my children there as long as they felt safe and comfortable.
“However, a few weeks into school, my eldest daughter Kai'shay came home and said she went to the toilet and there was a girl there and she said ‘you can’t use the toilet because you’re black’,” Martin claims.
After that first incident, racist comments continued, with Martin stating that Kai'shay was sent notes saying she was “ugly, her skin looks like poo,” and that “her family are ugly.”
“She told her teacher, and the teacher basically told the kids to shake hands and make up but didn’t really address the issue appropriately. So when Kai'shay came to me and told me this, I was like how am I going to address this with the school?”
Martin initially contemplated how to approach the situation, as she didn’t want the staff to be defensive. “I didn’t want the school to think I was pulling the race card, nor did I want them to say it was not a problem,” she said. “So it took me a little while to call the school and get my approach right.
DISMISSED
“I called the school eventually and I got through to the deputy headteacher and I told him about the racial abuse that my children have been facing. He said to me that he was surprised, because ‘racism doesn’t happen at my school’.
“In addition, another comment was made during that meeting where the headteacher said ‘when I came to the school there wasn’t many coloured children.’ In my head i'm thinking if your senior management and that’s how you’re talking, what are your teaching staff, cleaners, and dinner ladies saying?”
Following the meeting, there were two proposals put forward in order to tackle the issue.
“The action proposed was that I come in and do a school assembly on racism which I found highly inappropriate because it’s not my responsibility to tackle racism within the school,” says Martin.
“Another action that came from the meeting was to start a contact book for my daughter, so we could log how her day was going.”
Despite one worthy resolution that came from the initial meeting, the discrimination continued. Martin claims the same pupil continued to make racist comments - to which he wrote a letter of apology - and on February 8, another racist incident took place, involving both her daughters, which pushed Martin took take further action.
“On that day, Kai'shay was a victim of racism again. At the school dinner hall she and a friend were sitting and eating their lunch. One of the pupils were talking about their dessert, and said to the girls ‘you can’t eat chocolate because you’ve got chocolate on your face’, says the 31-year-old.
“My daughter went to the headteacher and he pretty much told her and the boys that they need to make up, shake hands and forget that this happened. This angered me, not only because of the way he handled it, but it was not reported in the contact book that this incident had taken place.”
BREAKING POINT
In addition, another incident took place involving Martin’s youngest daughter. “Kiara was presented with a teacher’s award in a school assembly along with six other children. The deputy headteacher presented the award to the first child, shook their hand and then he called up Kiara, gave her the award and my daughter put out her hand and he walked straight passed her and went to the other five children.
“She was so embarrassed that she started shaking on stage. Kai'shay was in the audience witnessing this alongside everyone else - it was so blatant that all the kids started speaking amongst one another about this.”
This was the final straw for Martin who felt the continuous racism her daughters faced was going unacknowledged with no proper policy in hand to protect them from discrimination.
Martin went into the school the following week, where she notified them that she would be approaching the tier of governors, and requested that the deputy headteacher be put on gardening leave.
“I also mentioned to them that I’d be enquiring about an independent review into institutional racism within the school and senior leadership,” she says.
Martin was quickly notified that an investigation would take place but that the deputy headteacher would not be put on gardening leave, which left her feeling concerned for her daughters safety.
“I told them that I don't feel the school can safeguard my children from emotional and racial harm, and I don’t feel comfortable sending them to school nor do my children feel comfortable going.”
While Martin alleges the school pushed back on her move to take the children out of school, she posted a video to social media about the racial discrimination they faced, which went viral and amassed thousands of views.
ACTION
“After the video went viral, they [the school] wrote to me saying due to the social media interest around this matter and the fact that it’s affected the local school and community, they don’t feel like they could do this investigation impartially and therefore they will be referring it to an independent investigator or body.
“They appointed an investigator - which I suggested they do in the first place - but once I researched her, I found out she’s actually a governor in one of the schools in the trust and to me that’s not a neutral, independent investigator,” says Martin.
“So I have pushed back on this lady doing the investigation and said that I feel she has a conflict of interest and she doesn’t have any extensive experience dealing with issues of race and racism.”
Martin’s children were out of Sherwood Park Primary School for a month and have now moved to a new school in the borough as she continues to deal with the matter. The NUS president will also be launching a crowdfund to raise money to take the school to county court for discrimination, and has connected with other parents who’ve been through similar experiences.
“This is happening day in and day out, up and down the country. At the time, I didn’t have any support from the local authority regarding the fact that i’d taken my children out of school for safeguarding because there isn't anything on paper for this.”
While the battle is ongoing, Martin is hopeful for a positive outcome that not only betters her daughters lives, but the lives of others living in predominantly white areas and feel their children are not safe from racial abuse in educational institutions.
“In the short to medium term, I would like the borough to do a review of all institutions to ensure all schools have policies on how to tackle racist incidents and mitigate those from happening. I want to feel confident that I can take my children to any school and if this was to arise again it would be dealt with appropriately,” says Martin.
“In the long term, I will be launching a campaign called ‘Safeguarding our children from institutional racism is British schools’ and I’m currently working with filmmaker George Amponsah who will be documenting my journey throughout this process.”
To sign Martin's petition, click here [2].
UPDATE
Sherwood Park Primary School headteacher Karen Cromwell said in a statement to The Voice: "The School and the Governing Body are aware of the complaint and are following the policies and processes in place regarding the parent’s concern.
"I cannot comment further on this matter because regulations require that any correspondence, statements and records relating to individual complaints is kept confidential between the complainant and the school except where the Secretary of State or a body conducting an Ofsted inspection requests access to them.
"Sherwood Park is a good school and I am proud of the children, parents, staff and community and the work that’s undertaken here."
Read every story in our hardcopy newspaper for free by downloading the app.