A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of representing Education Scotland on an international platform. In March, educators from around the world met in Billund, Denmark to lead sessions in the Playful School’s Conference. The event was sponsored by The Lego Foundation and hosted at the International School of Billund (ISB). The aim of the conference was to share ways that play can facilitate learning in lots of different ages and contexts. I was invited there to talk about ways teachers can be anti-racist, even through play-based learning, and share some of the work that’s taken place on the Building Racial Literacy programme. The workshops and roundtable talks were all delivered online, with two identical sessions running a day: one in the morning and the afternoon to accommodate for different time zones. It was free for anyone to join online and aimed to build on the success of the previous Playful Schools conference. Talks and workshops took place over three days, with each day having a theme. Following this structure, I’ll share some of the great things I learnt and experienced.

Day 1: More Than One Way to Play

The day involved lots of games, a tour of the school, and a workshop on pupil-led projects. It also involved me marvelling at how I got to be there, as I met people who had worked in impoverished communities from all over the world, had published books, led research, and travelled internationally as pedagogical consultants to schools. One person that I particularly enjoyed talking to works for an organisation that teaches skateboarding to girls in Afghanistan. It sounded bizarre, but after learning more about the scheme I realised how amazing it was for building girls’ sense of power and independence in contexts where that wasn’t usually facilitated.

Another thing I learnt though was how similar ISB’s vision was to Scottish education. As I walked around the school, seeing the children work and hearing how their learning was organised, it sounded very similar to the ethos of Curriculum for Excellence. Interdisciplinary learning was a strong theme, as well as the way ‘play’ looked in progression from early years to older learners.

The day ended with burgers and a remarkable thundersnow storm.

Day 2: Play with a Purpose

This day we had the option of joining a practical workshop or joining a more informative one. I went for one of the practical ones – at this point being fully on board with the ‘play’ theme of the conference. I tried out some software by JoyLabz, and played collaborative online games that my class would (and now have) loved trying. We also visited Lego House that day and it was heart-breaking to tear myself away from it for my rehearsal for the day after.  I chatted about my job and work with others using a ‘nip napper game’ (which I grew up knowing as a ‘fortune teller’). I chatted to an illustrator from India who created cartoons and comics to highlight wildlife and conservation issues. He spoke about how he was desperate to just doodle and sketch all day throughout his childhood, and I thought of a handful of pupils I’d taught who were the exact same. Hearing about his achievements, it made me think differently about all the scraps of drawings I’m always picking up and tucking back into pupil’s trays. I met Morton Meldal who had just won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. I learnt this fact about him before he was formally introduced as he was carrying a tote bag that said ‘Nobel rize Winner’ which made me wonder what goodies you get when you win a Nobel Prize,

Day 3: Play to Change the World

I didn’t attend any workshops this day as I was busy presenting my own. I loved delivering the sessions, and upon reflection I think this is because I was so proud to share the work of the Building Racial Literacy (BRL) programme. If you are not familiar with it, there’s more information in the links below. It was a joy to be able to share the importance of antiracist education, some ways it could be implemented easily, and how it can impact pupils of colour and be delivered through play-based learning. There are so many reasons that BRL has been successful in Scotland, even when some members have faced torrents of online abuse. To name a few; the funding and platform given by Education Scotland, the sense of community, the inclusion of safe spaces and critical friends, strong supportive leadership, the wealth of knowledge sourced from guest speakers, the way online learning is structured, and the way it’s evolved using feedback from participants. It was a tough call trying to work out how much of this I could fit into my session, alongside sharing some of my own practical strategies, resources and ideas for antiracist teaching!

I outlined ways to audit play spaces and ensure that pupils of colour felt represented in the curriculum – for example, including dolls of colour with different hair textures or getting books for school libraries that normalises different cultures and races. I shared the book list I had created to update my own school library and I also shared a list of lesson ideas and resources that I had collated for anti-racist teaching across each primary stage. I described ways my class had engaged in conversations about refugee journeys and built empathy through our class novel; ‘The Boy at the Back of the Class’ by Onjali Raúf. Since this novel, they have also written stories about the Windrush Generation, migration, and different cultures, using story cubes to simulate ideas, and entered their stories into the Crossing Continents Story Competition, They are also currently designing art for the Welcoming Refugees Project. I also spoke about how powerful football was in both teaching pupils about racism and also highlighting some amazing BAME role models such as Marcus Rashford. My class are football mad, and the game has facilitated some of our most meaningful conversations about racist incidents. My main message was that you don’t need to go vastly out of the way – everyday lessons and environments can, and should, be anti-racist.

It was a privilege to be able to share some of my work and all the success of BRL with such a huge audience. I had spent days wondering why I was there, meeting all these people with incredible accomplishments, but I didn’t wonder why the BRL programme had a place there. By recognising and educating about the context of racism (both historical and contemporary) in the UK, the BRL programme created (and continues to create!) positive change in education.

YouTube video: Playful Schools Conference Workshop: Creating an anti-racist classroom