Scottish Government

2 School Postal Survey

2.1 This next section focuses on the analysis of the responses from the school postal survey conducted in May and June 2005.

2.2 The postal survey ² to schools was designed to obtain a perspective from schools about how RIs are addressed and the use of the anti-racist toolkit: Educating for Race Equality - a Toolkit for Scottish Teachers.

2.3 The original intention was to distribute the survey to 20 per cent of Scottish schools, which amounts to approximately 600 establishments. It was calculated that a 33 per cent response rate would provide a confidence level of 95 per cent, thus ensuring the reliability and validity of analysis.

2.4 The sample was selected randomly from those remaining schools on the SEED database that had not already been chosen to participate in surveys of SEED-funded equality project 2 - Guidance on dealing with homophobic incidents, and project 7 - Promoting the educational interests of Gypsies and Travellers. This was to ensure that schools were not requested to complete surveys from more than one project.

2.5 This did entail some restriction in selecting the original number of schools and led to a small reduction in the sample number. Surveys, totalling 567, were distributed to 50 special schools, 305 primary schools and 212 secondary schools across Scotland in May 2005. Respondents were given three weeks to return the completed questionnaire by the deadline date of the 6 ^th June 2005. Two hundred and twenty-six responded, constituting a response rate of 40 per cent.

2.6 The following response rates were made; 32 per cent of special schools, 36 per cent of secondary schools and 43 per cent of primary schools responded.

2.7 The following sections provide an analysis of the responses from the 226 schools. This response is statistically reliable and represents eight per cent of the school establishments across Scotland.

Awareness and Use of the Anti Racist Toolkit: Educating for Race Equality - a Toolkit for Scottish Teachers

2.8 When asked about the toolkit, 73.5 per cent of respondents were aware of this resource. However, of these 166 positive responses, only 52 schools, 23.6 per cent of the total, had ever used it.

2.9 T he general profile of the 52 schools that used the toolkit was that they:

• already recorded RIs (94 per cent); and
• were located in a suburban or urban catchment area (67 per cent).

2.10 By school type, the 52 respondents that used the toolkit can be broken down as follows:

• 51 per cent (26) were secondary schools;
• 23 per cent (12) were primary;
• 14 per cent (7) were special schools.

2.11 The frequency with which these users accessed the toolkit was mainly on an ad hoc basis, with only 3 of those who answered this question using it regularly.

2.12 Chart 2.1 below highlights the circumstances under which the toolkit was used. The most popular use (76 per cent) was to seek general information, nine per cent used the resource to clarify the school's approach to addressing a racist incident and others used the toolkit for staff development, in-service materials and developing policy guidelines.

2.13 A very small number of respondents also provided comments on the additional information that they would like to see within the toolkit. This included more emphasis on the provision of support to parents of the children experiencing problems and practical materials on working in schools without minority ethnic ( ME) pupils.

Other Reference Materials

2.14 All the schools that were aware of the anti-racist toolkit highlighted in their responses that this was not their main source of guidance for addressing RIs. All respondents were asked about the other guidance that they accessed that related to this area and the most popular response was EA-issued policies. As Chart 2.2 indicates, information from HM Inspectorate for Education ( HMIe) was the second most popular response.

Racist Incidents

Recording Incidents

2.15 Eighty-nine per cent of respondents claimed to record RIs. Nine per cent stated that they did not record incidents and two per cent did not respond to the question. However 92 per cent of all respondents provided a figure for the number of incidents they had recorded in the 03/04 academic year.

2.16 Further examination of the schools (25) that did not record incidents revealed that the highest proportion, 60 per cent, were primary schools. These schools' catchment areas were most likely to be in a rural setting and the majority, 68 per cent, had less than 150 pupils. Within these schools, a quarter had ME pupils and, whilst the majority were small rural schools, there were three schools that had over 800 pupils and seven schools that were in city areas with recognised ME populations.

2.17 For those who did record racist incidents, the survey posed questions about the number of incidents recorded during the August 2003 - July 2004 academic year along with the system used for recording the incidents. Ninety-two per cent of respondents provided a number for recorded incidents within the school. The remaining eight per cent either stated, 'don't know' or left the response blank.

2.18 The chart overleaf groups the number of incidents and the proportion of schools that fall into that category. The most popular response, 62 per cent, was zero RIs during the 03/04 academic year. The highest number of incidents recorded amounted to 36 and this was from a secondary school in the central belt area with 722 pupils and 96 ME pupils.

2.19 Further analysis shows that there are some similarities amongst those schools that record zero incidents. The respondents that have recorded zero RIs tend to be primary schools (68 per cent) or schools with less than 350 pupils (80 per cent). Amongst this group 33 per cent had ME pupils attending the school.

2.20 There are no discernible patterns to the schools that have recorded 1-5 RIs. All school types fall into this category in all four different catchment areas ³ with varying numbers on the school roll and a mix of ME pupils.

2.21 Those who have recorded more than six RIs were generally secondary schools (60 per cent) in an urban setting (80 per cent) with the number of ME pupils in these schools varied from one to 120.

Recording Systems

2.22 In asking about the systems used to record incidents several different approaches were identified. Some of these were EA-issued like the:

• revised Tackling Racist Incidents within the Education Service ( TRIWES) form;
• multi-agency racist incidents monitoring ( MARIM);
• other EA/ LA -devised approach;
• anti-bullying policy.

2.23 Whereas other systems that were identified were independent of their authorities' guidance on recording RIs and these included:

• school incidents book;
• Phoenix database;
• head teacher/individual school approach.

2.24 EA/ LA-devised approach is specific to the local authority and included the revised TRIWES system which is based on the former Strathclyde Regional Council's Tackling Racist Incidents within the Education Service. It has been adopted by the Education Authorities in the 12 local authorities that were previously part of the Strathclyde region. It also included the multi-agency approach which originates from the multi-agency racist incident monitoring ( MARIM) group or partnership that collects data relating to RIs from partners like the health service and police within the locality. The format for the guidance and monitoring forms is designed to be used by all agencies including EAs and the data from all the agencies is centrally collated by the MARIM group ⁴. Other EA-guidance often had elements from the TRIWES or MARIM systems but tailored to the EA's specific needs or more generally linked to the EAs' Race Equality Policy ( REP).

2.25 The Anti-Bullying framework builds on policies and procedures in place for addressing bullying within the school and in most cases introduces a 'racist option' to categorise bullying.

2.26 Those schools not following the EA-issued guidance identified:

• the Incidents Book - manually record RIs in the same way that they would record any other incident that had taken place on the school premises;
• the Phoenix database -the school management software that has a module where incidents can be recorded. In a similar way to the manual approach detailed above it is a general recording tool and the Incidents Manager within this software package is used to record RIs;
• an individual school approach which in most cases involved reporting the incident to the head teacher or deputy head who would then use their judgement to deal with the matter. In some cases this might involve a meeting with the pupil and the parents.

2.27 The above indicates that schools are using several different types of recording systems.

Effectiveness of the approach

2.28 When questioned about the mechanisms to recording incidents, over 75 per cent of respondents believed that the approach used was effective, provided an accurate overview of RIs in the school and helped to address incidents in the future.

Summary

2.29 Whilst there is a good overall awareness of the toolkit, the use of this resource is limited amongst respondents. Ninety-two per cent of schools provided a number for recorded RIs, although the majority of schools recorded zero incidents in the 03/04 academic year.

2.30 Activity around the use of the toolkit and recording of incidents is lower in primary and special schools and in rural areas. There appears to be no positive correlation between schools that have ME pupils and the use of the toolkit or the recording of RIs. During the case studies we have examined further the relationship between the occurrence of racist incidents and the recording of them.

2.31 In addition to providing a snap shot of activity across a proportion of the school sector, the survey helped to inform the development of the topic guides which were used in the case study visits to individual schools. The questions contained in the postal survey were probed further during the case studies where these issues were discussed in detail with the selected schools and EAs.