(De)-Constructing an Anti-Racist Classroom

Our anti-racist teacher training supports teachers to recognise their own role in systemic inequity, build a more equitable practice, and become an active threat to inequity in their school.

Thinking is an action

Our flagship course is a detailed and engaging programme for teachers at all levels of experience to learn ideas and techniques that challenge the current discourse around supporting young people.

This course differs from current unconscious bias training as it offers an intense, responsive and robust long-term package of support. Our training is not concerned with intention, as intention is irrelevant to young people who are being adversely affected by the current education system.

Participants are provided many opportunities throughout the course to recognise and reflect on their current teaching practices, then respond by putting their learning into action in their school.

Robust, engaging training

The course consists of three sequential modules that build on the learning, with five 2.5-hour sessions in each. The course is grounded in the latest and most innovative educational research, giving you access to a wealth of academic and multimedia learning resources.

You will be given practical assignments to put your learning into practice. You will also have opportunities to share your ideas with our ever-expanding community of learners.

Our learning groups are small to ensure that all participants are able to get the most out of the programme. Facilitators tailor the material to each group, allowing time during sessions to discuss issues and experiences as they arise.

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Modue 1

"Deficit ideology defines every social problem in relation to those toward the bottom of the power hierarchy, trains our gaze in that direction, and as a result, manipulates the popular discourse in ways that protect and reify existing sociopolitical conditions."

Paul Gorski

Module 1

An Anti-Racist Understanding of Deficit Thinking

The first module of the course aims to support you to identify the symptoms of structural inequity in your setting and build capacity to champion more equitable practices in your school.

Over the five sessions we will explore:

The concept of deficit ideology
The principles of anti-racist practice
The historical correlation between deficit ideology and racism
How deficit thinking and racism affect educational outcomes at school, and particularly in your own setting
How to identify deficit thinking when it happens, and mitigate its impact within your own setting
How to develop practical definitions of racism and deficit thinking

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Equity Literacy

Module 2

Building Your Anti-Racist Practice

The second module aims to support you to recognise how inequity has shaped your personal identity and take steps to transform your professional practice.

Over the five sessions we will:

Reflect on and analyse your own experiences (educational, personal, formal and informal)
Build your capacity to form professional judgements through an anti-racist lens
Reframe problems in your classroom you’ve felt stuck on
Use established reflective models to gain a new awareness of the way you practise.

"The classroom, with all its limitations, remains a location of possibility. In that field of possibility we have the opportunity to labor for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress."

bell hooks

Democratic education

"Racism is traumatic because it is a loss of protection, safety, nurturance, and acceptance—all things children need to enter school and learn."

Bettina Love

Module 3

An Anti-Racist Understanding of Safeguarding

The third module aims to support you to recognise the scale and urgency of the problems caused by inequity in education. We want you to become an active threat to inequity in your school.