And I understand that you’ve brought this issue to several committees and had a response there too.” The invitation CRT issues to children is, precisely, that they should define themselves and each other as victims or oppressors according to their colour.

When he came to the realization that wasn't his future, he told his mother who was very supportive. His father ended up forcing the coming out, having already suspected, in an extremely intense scene. When Ramzi told him what he wanted to hear, his father became quiet and said "why don't you just put a bullet in my head." Ramzi's sister, who is also queer and had come out before, was also present. And I would be very concerned – and I am concerned – that we’re being denied that. And I know that other councillors are concerned about that … These are all things that we should know about.”Adrian has lived and worked in Bethnal Green and Stratford in east London since 1984, and before that he was an activist in late 1980s/early 1990s anti-racism campaigns. He said: “Hiding this from scrutiny is unwise – but to cite commercial interests in your ‘freedom of information’ request refusal is … a misreading of the Act.” I’m not sure I’ve ever heard ‘commercially sensitive’ regarding information or stuff being used in schools ever before so I find that deeply worrying as well.

Leading proponents of Critical Race Theory reject rationalism, liberalism and Enlightenment values. As a council, we believe that racism is not just a product of individual bias or prejudice but something embedded in our systems which is why the rich ethnic diversity of our city is not represented in council or in employees in our schools. It’s a very important issue. We are deeply committed to it. But we do feel that it must be democratic and transparent – and it’s very, very important to have that.” Councillor Hannah Clare By understanding the history of racism, we will equip school staff to take steps to prevent and mitigate the experiences of racism in our community.Before writing a series of books (based on research in schools), Adrian Hart was a community and schools filmmaker and film tutor. After seven years as a part-time lecturer in special needs education, he formed Coyote Films in 1998. His films prioritise the participation of children and focus on a range of cohorts from refugee and asylum seekers to children with moderate or severe learning difficulties. Other projects simply use filmmaking as an enabling process for children in schools or in theatre groups or in council estates. In his last years in filmmaking (hired to develop local authority anti-racism educational resources) he concluded the work was damaging. He ended this work and warned about it in subsequent writings. All reasonable people agree racism is bad, but many people have doubts about whether this is the most appropriate way to help children see what is wrong with it and why. Collaborations with various London arts organisations resulted in a number of award winning films. These include Safe (winner of LWTs Whose London? competition and broadcast in 2002), Moving Here (awarded beacon status in 2006 by the Home Office) and Only Human (made in 2006 for Essex primary schools and broadcast on Teachers TV in 2009). Critical race theory is our lens for developing our understanding of the complexities of racism – and not an ideology. We are proud of how Brighton and Hove schools are engaging with us and leading on this complex work and hopeful that our approach will make a difference.”

Our feeling is that it should be transparent. We represent residents in the city and obviously that includes parents.” Our race and literacy training for schools explains that we are all one human race and that race is a social construct used, for example, to justify slavery and the holocaust.At GCSE or A level stages, partisan political or religious ideologies are rightly presented, discussed and balanced with differing perspectives, but we accept that they should never be promoted.” sector equality duty’ – the duty to foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.” Schools are also free to engage any training providers to deliver training for their staff in line with school values and policy. Green councillor Hannah Clare, who chairs the Children, Young People and Skills Committee, said: “I don’t have anything more to add as I think you’re aware of our positive position towards the importance of discussing the reality and existence of racism in schools If you had known of the controversies surrounding CRT, you would have had reason to investigate if the strategy breaches the ‘public sector equalities duty’ by fostering divisions among children. Adrian Hart