In this current social climate, the subject of race cannot and indeed should not be avoided. There has been an outpouring of cries from Black and allied communities across the world to protest the need to recognise that Black lives matter as much as non-Black lives. The systemic and direct treatment of Black people both here in the UK, and across the pond in the USA, has sent ripples of devastation and there is a distinct sense of mourning and collective trauma as we all look at the state of the world.

Localising this collective trauma to the UK means that as a society we cannot afford to ignore the statistics that show that Black and Brown communities have been disproportionately impacted by COVID as well as the MBRRACE-UK Saving Lives, Improving Mothers’ Care report which highlighted that “Black women are five times more likely to die as a result of pregnancy than white women”. These statistics show a deeper fracture with regards to racial inequality than British society would like to admit. With rebuttals such as “All lives matter” and that issues of racism are not as bad as in the U.S, it seems that Black and Brown communities are constantly being gaslighted into believing that everything is in their imagination and that the delineations of what racism actually is have been set by white people who would never have been on the receiving end of this particular type of discrimination.

Anti-racism work has had a resurgence and it would seem that since the findings of Sir William Macpherson’s report in 1999 which showed evidence of systemic racism being present in all institutions, namely the Metropolitan police, nothing much has changed. We are still seeing statistics which show a higher proportion of Black men being targeted for stop and search and a higher number of Black people dying in police custody. But how does all of this feed into education, I hear you ask, and more specifically Early Years education? Well what is key to remember here is that the children that we care for are a part of these communities and families. They are impacted by the wider traumas of the societies that they are a part of, and the intersections of where their identities sit mean that the Early Years workforce must be equipped to not only be familiar with these wider issues, but also not shy away from how these things become an integral part of an anti-racist practice that must become embedded within Early Years practice if we are really going to commit to being part of the solution, and not the problem.

I am somewhat spirited by what I am seeing by way of dialogue being opened up with regards to anti-racism within the Early Years sector, but I am not under any illusion. There is still an enormous amount of work to be done and many have been doing this work in the sector long before me.  As a former nursery manager who worked for sixteen years managing one of three settings owned by my mother who has had her businesses since the late 1980’s, I have first-hand experience witnessing the systemic racism of the local authorities and the regulatory bodies. I recognise that other Black owned nursery settings who came before my mother such as Marcus Garvey Day Nursery which was run by the Harambee Housing Association in Birmingham also had similar experiences.  The work of activists, Early Years trainers and scholars such as Dr Stella Louis, Jane Lane, Laura Henry, Professor Iram Siraj OBE, Haki Kapasi and Babette Brown to name a few have done and continue to do “the work”.  It is not lost on me that anti-racist work in the Early Years is legacy work which we will not see in our lifetime. I know that the foundations of work done today will pave progress for tomorrow.

Over the past 4 months I have developed an online platform utilising the medium of social media, predominantly Instagram. My handle, The Black Nursery Manager has become an extension of my anti-racist training and consultancy business which focuses specifically on the Early Years sector. I have noticed that in that relative short time I have curated nearly 5k followers, predominantly white and predominantly women who are either parents or people who work within the sector. They have been eagerly consuming the content that I provide which ranges from infographics that give guidance about how to make role play spaces more inclusive to reflective quotes which probe for deeper discussions in the comments.

The most noticeable measure that I have used to gauge the impact of my work, has been that many of those people are booking on to the webinars I have been creating and delivering over the past 4 months, and the demand and feedback has been incredible.  I am able to clearly see that there is a shift happening in the consciousness of white practitioners to want to, in the words of writer Emma Dabiri “ move their allyship into coalition” and implement practical changes in their educational environments to ensure that the antiracist thread is running all the way through the fabric of their practice.

One of the most common questions I am asked on my platform is how to open up conversations about race with children under 5, and of course this is very expansive and hinges on a range of factors including what is the race of the child?, what is the race of the adult?, what is the relationship between the two? But for the purposes of the readership of this publication I am going to provide some guidance in the form of 4 tips aimed at white practitioners for pre-school aged children 3 to 4 years old:

1.      Children are inquisitive

You work with children, so it is no surprise to you that they are inquisitive by nature and they always want to know why? As tiresome as the repetition of this simple question may be, we must equip ourselves with some response and that may be one of two things. A directive for them to go and investigate to find out, for example:

Child: “Chloe, is that water warm or cold”

Practitioner: “Put your hand in and find out”

or it might be:

Child: “Chloe, why is your skin pink and my skin’s brown?”

At this point what is your response? As a range of things go through your mind it may totally shock you and you become flustered but it is precisely at this point that you must answer this with the ease you would as if it was the question about the temperature of the water and your response must be calm, casual and positive. For example:

Practitioner: “Well, in the world there are lots of different skin colours they are all really lovely! Some people are brown, some people are pink, some people are darker brown”

And in line with being in the moment I would use this as an opportunity to go to your resources and start an extension activity for expressive arts and design. A simple self portraits activity.  We will explore this more in tip 4.

2.      Exercise your anti-racist muscles

If you, as a white practitioner, are not personally equipped to talk about race then you are not going to be able to bring anything by way of preparation to the setting. Your anti-racist muscle needs to be exercised and this is where your own CPD comes in. Read, read, read and read. There is a range of material that has been produced for you to access as well as courses to attend (my own for a start on the 26th October) but you must be engaged with this material to strengthen your practice.

Some of my top recommendations would be

How to Be an Antiracist- Ibram X.Kendi

The Good Immigrant – Edited by Nikesh Shukla

This Book is Anti-Racist – Tiffany Jewell

White fragility – Robin Di’Angelo

3.      Move away from perfectionism

In her book, Me and White Supremacy, Layla F. Saad talks about perfectionism and the desire to always get things right when it comes to talking about race. Do not let your fear of getting things wrong silence you into not having conversations about race, because it is the most dangerous thing to do, especially when it comes to addressing racist incidents.  Whether that be with co-workers or between the children, you cannot afford to turn a blind eye because you’re scared of getting it wrong.

Here’s a secret…we all get things wrong because we’re human but getting things wrong and being corrected is an integral part of learning. After all this is what we encourage children to do, make mistakes and learn from them. That is the same stance that you must take when it comes to anti-racism, and if a Black or non-Black person of colour corrects you on terminology do not move into a state of fragility, accept it, correct it and move on.

4.      Use your resources

Inclusive and diverse resources that reflect the society and world that we live in are an integral part of any Early Years environment. Of course, your anti-racist work does not start and end with having a few Black dolls but think carefully about how those Black dolls are played with by the children and observe how often they are selected, think about how you as a practitioner model playing with those dolls. Dr Stella Louis talks about how we must move past noticing and into observing, as noticing is passive and means that we miss the small things that are a big part of how children are making sense of the world. When we observe we pay close attention to the many small things that children do and are able to assist them and extend their learning opportunities based on what we know they are showing us.

This is the start of something as a seismic shift is happening within our society. Time has been halted for us to a degree as the lockdown season has forced us to stop and take note. Let us not waste this opportunity in the Early years to be better and do better by those children who need our understanding, advocacy and a real and deep consideration of anti-racist practice.

You can sign up to Liz's course, mentioned in the article, following the link here.