A former Education Minister has said schools should be more forthcoming in teaching British values as children as young as four have been suspended for racism.
Speaking on GB News, Michelle Donelan said: “I think it's absolutely ridiculous. Of course, a four-year-old shouldn't be sent home. First of all, we've got to remember a four-year-old is a four-year-old. They're not actually able to comprehend the concept of racism.
“They are able to parrot back things that they've heard, and so the right approach should be for the teacher to explain and to understand and to do the teaching of what is wrong with what they've said, and to explain the implications and how it can hurt another child or another member of the school community.
“But excluding them and suspending them is simply not going to do anything. Just issuing discipline without understanding is going to make the problem worse. It's not a common sense approach, but also it doesn't deal with the root cause of the problem either.
“I take the point that it's only five kids, but it's five kids too many. Because what does suspending a kid do? It puts a great deal of pressure on their parents; working parents could end up losing their employment at the very end of the spectrum.
“In addition, if they're getting these ideas and these concepts from their home environment, suspending them is the lazy attitude that actually makes the problem worse and could fuel the problem.
“So what we need to be doing is talking to our kids. And I think the bigger issue is that something that we've shied away from for far too long: we need to be embedding values throughout our school community.
“That means British identity, British values, a sense of British cohesion, and that's something that we seem to be afraid to talk about in this country.”
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