Anti-racism education action

All forms of racism impact on student and teacher wellbeing.

Whole school programs


Racism remains an ongoing barrier to equitable access and participation in education and society more broadly. Successfully countering and preventing racism requires collective and sustained action. Listed below are some ideas that schools can consider implementing:

  • ensure there are effective processes in place to report, record and manage incidents of racism.
  • communicate the processes for reporting and managing racism to the school community.
  • use interpreters, translations and community support to provide information to parents and carers.
  • address racist student behaviour using the school’s behaviour processes and an educational approach to prevent it from reoccurring.
  • use focus groups, surveys and other mechanisms to better understand the nature and prevalence of racism.
  • Build the capacity of all staff to understand racism, its impact and how to respond.
  • embed anti-racism content into teaching and learning programs to increase students’ understanding of racism and its effects.
  • have a regular column in school publications eg newsletter which includes quotes, community statistics, poems relevant to cultural inclusivity.
  • consider leadership or peer mediation training.
  • hold an anti-racism forum for the student leadership body – involve the member of staff responsible for dealing with issues of discrimination such as your Anti-Racism Contact Officer (ARCO).
  • hold an anti-racism forum for the regional student representatives. Involve the members of staff responsible for dealing with issues of discrimination and Educational Service Advisers.
  • ask students to write their commitment to counter racism and display the commitments in a visible place in the school.
  • organise a competition for students to create anti-racism posters that are linked to the values of the school.
  • Organise for a range staff, students and community to deliver anti-racism messages at school assemblies.
  • Ensure teaching and learning programs include resources from diverse perspectives that support cultural inclusion, avoid generalisations, challenge stereotypes and racism and help to build an understanding of culture and diversity.
  • establish a Student Anti-Racism Network (SARN) with neighbouring schools.
  • develop and implement an anti-racism program across a year level for a term – older students could be trained to take groups.
  • use videos as focus for discussion in anti-racism training.
  • book a performance group dealing with multiculturalism and racism.
  • invest in new resources which focus on intercultural understanding.
  • use literature about anti-racism and cultural inclusion as a basis for literacy work, reading periods or peer reading – refer to Intercultural understanding through texts (PDF 2MB).
  • display a cultural board in the library or school that features a different cultural group each month.
  • run a writer/poet-in-residence program. Collate work into a resource for future use.
  • invite a story teller or puppeteer to perform and then record the stories in books for younger students.
  • write stories for your local primary or preschool. These could be based on Aboriginal stories or stories from different cultures, either familiar to the students or researched. Team with Visual Arts to illustrate the stories.
  • study and write folktales, poetry or short stories on the theme of multiculturalism.
  • invite community guest speakers representing the diversity of the community.
  • study historical documents and speeches relating to multiculturalism or race relations such as Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln or Paul Keating’s Redfern speech.
  • use the NSW Department of Education’s Calendar for cultural diversity to recognise and observe significant days.
  • Include anti-racism in school wellbeing planning days.
  • plan activities to observe days of major significance such as:
  • make a short video to reflect the diversity of your school.
  • hold a visual arts exhibition focusing on anti-racism.
  • create cultural artefacts.
  • create decorative  items such as puppets, kites, lanterns, masks or body art – research their origins.
  • design and paint a cultural harmony mural for a playground wall.
  • create a mosaic reflecting the identity of the class, school or local community or based on a theme or significant event – each student paints one large tile and tiles are combined as a finished product.
  • study, make or play instruments from around the world.
  • investigate racism and stereotyping in popular modern music.
  • invite community members to give cooking demonstrations from different cultural backgrounds.
  • run cultural diversity trivia using questions from the Racism. No way! quizzes.
  • have fun multicultural periods or wet weather activities – introduce board games from around the world and rotate students – play music! Dance! Sing! Read! Enjoy!

Share your anti-racism actions

Have you implemented an effective anti-racism action in your school? Share the details with us via email.