Why I wrote an open letter to my old private school asking them to decolonise their curriculum – and why all private schools should follow

While studying post-colonialism at university this year, I became more and more aware of the truth of the world around me, of the privilege I have and the suffering of others. We are often taught to believe racism doesn't exist in Britain, a part of our conditioning which begins in the whitewashed school curriculum.

The death of George Floyd brought to the forefront a lot of what I had been studying and thinking about. It was awful, and it said so much about the way people of colour are still treated, whether it be in the US, the UK, or elsewhere. While I had spent time educating myself more, educating (or arguing with) my family and donating money, it didn’t even come close to being enough.

In a flustered conversation with someone about racism in the UK, I was asked what, specifically, I actually wanted to see change here. By the time I left Latymer Upper, I could have told you so much about the Anglo-Saxons and the feudal system, but much less about civil rights movements. I couldn’t have told you anything about Britain’s centuries of participation in the slave trade, its economic destruction of India, or its historic treatment of immigrants. I couldn’t have told you anything about why it is that people of colour are so underrepresented in so many important parts of our society. I couldn’t have told you anything about why, in 2020, the cards are still so heavily stacked in favour of people like me, who are white, middle class and went to a "good" school, and against people of colour.

I didn’t know any of this stuff before university, where I happened to choose some modules that were relevant. I now believe, having had my mindset altered, that we should change the way we teach history. We should learn not just Britain’s self-made hagiography, but a history that shows why we are where we are, will light the fire. An inclusive and accurate history will make for an inclusive society, but we are a long way away from that: even now, only a fifth of UK universities have said they will change their curricula.

The more friends I spoke to, the more I thought it might help to write to Latymer and ask for its education to be, in the words of the Black Lives Matter movement, decolonised. This was a movement already taking place in the form of petitions to Gavin Williamson, but I knew that the privilege of attending a private school, and thus being able to contact the headmaster for immediate independent curriculum change, was not an opportunity to be missed.

So I wrote an open letter to Mr Goodhew, the headteacher. I wrote about how great it was that the school worked so hard to promote good mental health and to fight bullying. I wrote about how my peers and I nevertheless left the school in a state of ignorance. I wrote about how important it was that private schools, which have so much influence and whose curriculums are much more flexible than those of state schools and who produce some of the most powerful people in the country, take the lead.

I posted the letter to my Facebook and Instagram accounts in the form of an editable document. Within a couple of days, 800 alumni had added their signatures. I also received a lot of messages of agreement from alumni who had had similar awakenings at university and had pondered back on what they learnt at school or they people they were after leaving. I wrote that anyone who wanted to duplicate or improve the letter could do so and that meant on Facebook many other independent London school alumni saw it. At least 14 more schools have done so now, including Uppingham, Godolphin & Latymer, Emanuel, St Paul’s, Francis Holland, James Allen’s Girls’ School, St Mary’s, the Harrodian, and Westminster. Some of them referred to memories of shocking racial abuse at school, to which authorities often turned a blind eye.

Westminster alumni have drawn up a detailed manifesto that I think any school, mine included, would benefit from adopting. They say the school should:

• Address under-representation in staff, which creates the perception that people in authority must be white, by interviewing a BAME candidate for every teaching job, and actively encouraging such candidates to apply for vacancies. A similarly proactive approach should be taken with student intake.

• Depart from the current Eurocentric curriculum. An organisation called The Black Curriculum offers a good template for this.

• Implement a zero-tolerance anti-racism policy, separate from pre-existing work on bullying, in which teachers are trained to handle incidents of racial abuse, and students receive classes, talks, and small-group counsellor sessions.

• Support BAME students outside the school, e.g. by providing access to facilities and offering student volunteers for mentorship programmes.

These are a great starting point. As a general rule, we should listen to, and amplify, the voices of groups such as The Black Curriculum. My own contribution has been minimal, and I know that people of colour within the Latymer student body have been asking for change prior to this movement. I don’t deserve any credit, though I think it’s right for people of privilege to use that privilege for good, and I hope that’s what the letter is doing. I hope this article prompts everyone to think about what immediate change they can make through the connections their privilege has given them.

Mr Goodhew gave us a response that made me hopeful. He said he couldn’t agree more, and that he and the school will make proper changes, and that they’ll listen to people of colour as they do so. I don’t know what will happen in the end, but the response to the letter, both from him and within the wider school community, makes me feel a little bit more optimistic that things in this country and abroad can get better. Knowledge isn’t everything, but being taught correctly is vital for race relations in the UK. If you are given the opportunity to learn about experiences different from your own, you gain the capacity to become aware of your own privilege, and that is what leads to change. This is a matter of moral urgency for private schools in particular.