Like me, I am sure that you watched the scenes this summer with horror and dismay as rioters and extremists – in person and online – spewed hatred and threatened violence towards people of colour and immigrants in many towns and cities across the UK.
This was sparked, as we know, by disinformation that was spread online, including on social media, about the tragedy that unfolded at a dance event in Southport – the murder of three young children and the attempted murder of eight others and two adults.
A fake name was given to the attacker, with false claims that he was a refugee who had arrived by boat in the UK and that he was a Muslim.
However, Merseyside Police confirmed that the 18-year-old who has been arrested and charged – and who is now awaiting trial – was born in Cardiff. His parents are Rwandan with no links to Islam. Indeed, it has been reported that they are practising Christians.
During the riots and even now, many people of colour that I know talked of feeling scared to leave their homes, of being shouted at or attacked in the street, of feeling more insecure in their communities than ever before. Even if no riots occurred in your community, I don't think we can underestimate the fear and insecurity being felt by minority groups given the level of overt and vitriolic racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia that has been expressed across media and in scenes broadcast from our towns and cities.
Students and staff will inevitably have been affected and it would be naïve to assume that these events and their after-effects are now “over”.
The riots reveal some important truths about our current social and political circumstances as a society and I think it is instructive to identify these when navigating the route ahead – the causal factors have not gone away and are unlikely to do so anytime soon.
Spilling into school life
So, what do we need to be discussing in our classrooms? I want to expand upon three key considerations before offering a few practical pointers for any discussions we might have with students.
1, The power of disinformation via social media to prompt fear and stir up hatred is huge: This has perhaps never been seen so starkly. The very early (and untrue) suggestion via X (Twitter) that the person responsible for the killings in Southport was Muslim and came here illegally in a small boat began a domino effect that had huge implications. This tweet was traced to the account of a 55-year-old woman from Yorkshire and it was apparently deleted after just one hour (see Oppenheim, 2024). This shows just how easily and quickly we believe information that reinforces our fears, prejudices and core beliefs and just how quickly disinformation can spread.
In fact, the person, Axel Rudakubana, who has been arrested and charged and who is now awaiting trial, was born in Wales and apparently comes from a Christian family (see Thornton et al, 2024). But he is Black and so he fits a “profile”.
2, The driving factor is fear, not hatred: It is easy to label rioters as evil or “thuggish” – but this misses the point. The aggressive behaviour we observed stems from fear. Fear is understandable of course. The complete unpredictability and horror of the Southport attacks left many of us, particularly those with young children, feeling vulnerable. How many of us drop our children off at a club every week with total trust that they will be safe?
Fear usually expresses itself in attempts regain “control” – this is the basic drive behind a lot of bullying behaviour. Control is, of course, an instinctive reaction to fear and anxiety: the attempt to do whatever is within my power to mitigate and minimise the threat: fight, flight, freeze or fawn. As teachers, we see this day-in, day-out.
The danger is that we lash out at whatever we perceive to be a threat rather than at the threat itself. It isn’t rational, it’s emotional. It’s an attempt to make ourselves and our families feel safer by “doing something”.
3, People who are ‘different’ are most at risk: Given the amount of political rhetoric in recent months and years focused on the “threat” of immigration, small boats, and Islam, the perceived “outsiders” in our communities have become the easy target.
Skin colour is the obvious, simplistic mechanism for categorising people, hence the racism and Islamophobia that has been so apparent this summer. But as we know any difference can become a target for young people in our schools.
In the classroom and corridors
The three considerations above are instructive when we think about how we approach the matter in schools because, undoubtedly, the after-effects from this summer will spill into school life – and we need to be ready for this. My first piece of advice as term starts is to let student and staff voice shape your response.
Make it a priority to speak, with sensitivity and humility, to minority ethnic or religious students, staff, and parents. You might feel able to ask them if they feel comfortable sharing with you what they have felt and experienced this summer.
Then, as you respond, check back regularly so you can be sure about the impact of any interventions.
Second, address the matter directly with staff and students. Silence on this issue will leave minority students feeling vulnerable and unsupported and risks allowing prejudicial language and behaviour to spread beneath the radar of staff awareness.
This means addressing the fears of students and giving deliberate and proactive reassurance by explicitly restating your policies and procedures for addressing racist or discriminatory behaviour. It also means being crystal clear about the rights and value of each person in your school community. Third, proactive support and safeguarding for students affected over the summer or on the return to school needs to be deliberate and prompt.
This means being hyper-alert to the fact that minority groups in your school may find themselves targeted and – whether they are targeted or not – they may feel more vulnerable than ever.
But we also need to be alert to students whose parents may be sympathetic to elements of the far right and may have been influenced over the summer; this may mean that they are arriving back in school with views that undermine human rights and the Equality Act.
And of course, students who perpetrate extremist attitudes are themselves victims and careful consideration should be given of what intervention and support will be necessary and appropriate.
Finally, we need to discuss social media. Undoubtedly your PSHE and wider curriculum will address this already challenging issue from a number of different angles.
However, in the context of this summer, we need to address social media use specifically, emphasising care and responsibility in our posts and reposts. It is also a chance to double-down on the impact of the misuse of social media and disinformation. We must think-through a robust approach to this as part of our curriculum and pastoral care.
Deconstructing Power
A quick additional note to recommend Amnesty UK’s Anti-Racism event which I am organising on September 28. Entitled, Deconstructing Power, we will be addressing the summer riots along with other race-related justice issues in society. It is excellent CPD and is open to staff as well as sixth-form students (see further information).
Final thoughts
As teachers and support staff working with children and young people, we play a critical role in shaping lives and, as such, our society. The business of education is not just grades, assessments and subjects, it is the impact we can have on attitudes, society and the future. The job we do is vital and life-changing.
- Peter Radford, founder of Beyond This, is a former teacher and school leader. He now delivers student workshops and staff training on a range of RSHE and Careers issues including all aspects of equality, diversity, and inclusion. Find his previous articles for SecEd via www.sec-ed.co.uk/authors/peter-radford/
Further information & resources
- Deconstructing Power: The event takes place on September 28. Details and booking via https://l1nq.com/antiracismnetwork
- Oppenheim: Woman named as first to share false Southport suspect rumour before riots says mistake ‘destroyed’ her, The Independent, 2024: https://buff.ly/3T6nFQC
- Thornton, Bone & Lynch: Inside the religious family of Southport suspect Axel Rudakubana accused of killing young girls, The Mirror, 2024: https://buff.ly/3X4QKNs