You are Not Alone: Leaders for Race Equality

institution where she belongs and offers representation, where the Google algorithm doesn’t.

She is a great leader who offers clarity, focus and sensitivity while also loving innovation. She loves long walks, peanut butter milkshakes and Lake Como.

I just happen to be Black and sadly for many people that’s all I will ever be.

Experiencing discrimination can provoke stress responses similar to post-traumatic stress disorder and therefore BAME staff need to feel supported by leadership in their school. The negative treatment affects an individual’s life and wellbeing.

Early in my career I was spat at, harassed and verbally abused on a daily basis because my skin colour was hated. I would collect my class every day and brace myself for the abuse. I worked in an area where the British National Party was one of the majority parties in 2006. I dreaded every morning.

Trauma is an emotional response to a terrible event.

I was experiencing this event daily and as a result I had a physical and emotional response to the trauma I was encountering, and it could have ended my career before it had even begun.

I was the only Black staff member at the school, so staff hadn’t experienced racism before and had no idea how to deal with it.

So, when my head teacher found me having a panic attack in the hallway one morning before collecting my class, she was quite confused when I told her what had been happening.

She had never made a connection between the impact of the BNP being elected and having a Black teacher; why would it be on her radar?

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