Cardiff head teacher who faced racism fights for changeon November 5, 2022 at 9:54 pm

One of Wales’ only ethic minority head teachers has told of the racism she has experienced in her career in a bid to bring about change.

Reena Patel said she was called racist names by children when working as a supply teacher in Wales.

She said she was previously turned down for a head teacher job and told she “didn’t reflect the community”.

She has begun work to make her school anti-racist, starting with training for its predominately white teachers.

Nine in 10 of the 480 children at her school, Kitchener Primary in Cardiff, are from an ethnic minority. However all but one of its teachers are white.

“The term white privilege makes you feel threatened, it makes you feel you are being racist and it’s not,” said Mrs Patel, who is one of just five head teachers in Wales from an ethnic minority.

“When you work in a diverse school you do think you’re anti-racist automatically because you feel that you do understand our children’s needs but it is important to reflect on your own privileges…

“They [her teachers] believe that they’re anti-racist and being part of an ethnic minority group myself, I’m quite sensitive hearing certain things that happen.”

She added: “It’s no-one’s fault but I’m quite sensitive to it so I know that maybe when you are of white heritage you may not believe that certain obstacles are there for our children.

“It can be as small as putting in an application form, that’s really difficult for some of our families, and it’s important to understand that you may not understand those obstacles but people who look like me do.”

She said racism can happen between different ethnic minority groups and everyone needed to work on being actively anti-racist and the school is working with Darpl (diversity and anti-racism professional learning).

Children at the school have been working on projects that celebrate identity and difference and plan events to celebrate all the different cultural and religious festivals so everyone is included.

Mrs Patel, who is of Indian heritage, was born in Leicester and studied in London, said moving to Wales and working in its schools had been a “culture shock”.

“I have experienced racism – I’ve experienced racism in recruitment, I’ve experienced racism whilst being a teacher and the assumption here is that you’ve just got to accept it because you are the minority whereas I don’t feel I was the minority in Leicester or in London,” she said.

She said before becoming head teacher at Kitchener she was turned down for a few headship roles.

Recalling one of these experiences, she said: “It was quite disappointing, it was really sad… in not so many words it was inferred that I wasn’t reflective of the community so that’s why I didn’t get the job but I was very close…

“It’s upsetting that this is still happening in 2022 but I was also frustrated because it wasn’t my ability to be a headteacher, it was more about what I look like.”

“I know that they found me scary – young, a person of colour,” she added.

Mrs Patel said she had also experienced racism in the classroom while working as a supply teacher: “I was called certain terms and that was quite upsetting,” she said.

“It made me not want to be in Wales if I’m really honest, it made me want to go back to Leicester because I hadn’t experienced it before so it was the unknown for me.”

She said she was sharing her experiences in the hope it would help others, including her young daughter.

Mrs Patel would like to see more head teachers in Wales from ethnic minorities and said having a head teacher from her background was important for the children at her school.

“There’s one phrase which I always use with the children, it describes representation through and through – ‘you can’t be something that you can’t see’,” she said.

“I hope it inspires children to want more. It does make them feel that they’re connected to me, we talk about festivals, we talk about languages, we speak about foods that we eat.

“Our children feel that safety, they feel that sense of belonging, they feel connected.”

Mrs Patel said she did not know Wales’ four other head teachers from ethnic minorities but would love to be in contact with them.

She said: “It would be lovely to connect with the others to have that support network, to feel connected, to see if they’ve had similar experiences to me – just seeing other people who look like me in higher influential positions will help future generations”.

The Welsh government said it was committed to making Wales anti-racist by 2030.

It added: “In order to achieve this, our education system must broaden pupils’ understanding and knowledge of the diverse cultures which have built our past and present. We understand there remains a significant amount of work to do, which is highlighted by Reena Patel’s story.

“High quality, free, diversity and anti-racist professional learning known as DARPL is now available to all education professionals across Wales. This has been created by a coalition of partners with professional and lived experience to support those working in education to understand and develop anti-racist practice.”

This school is unlike anything I experienced growing up in Newport.

And yes, while Newport is pretty multicultural compared to other parts of Wales, there were only a handful of us from ethnically diverse backgrounds – and no teachers – in my primary.

While I may look white in passing, I am mixed race. Just recently, my mum said she remembered everyone looking at me like they were trying to work out my heritage when I joined primary in Year Four.

I was the same age as the children in Kitchener Primary School when I was called some of the most disgusting names by one pupil on the playground. Whether they knew what they were saying or even knew what those words meant I don’t know. I just remember feeling hurt and confused.

While measures were put in place when I reported it, there were no teachers who were able to understand or empathise with what I experienced that day.

If my teachers had been given anti-racism training then that would have made a huge difference. For me, for everyone else and for change.