Author’s note: This blog has been hard to write and will be hard to read. I’m grateful for the support of colleagues, mentors and beginning teachers who have helped me to shape it. I hope it will be read in the spirit it is intended. It is an attempt to open up an important conversation in this mentoring space, explore my own biases and experiences and reflect on what I’ve learnt about acknowledging the reality of how schools are being experienced by some of our beginning teachers, while offering some suggestions of things mentors can do when situations involving discrimination arise. This blog does not claim to be anything more than a conversation starter, and I also recognise I won’t have got everything right. I have linked to a number of resources at the end which offer more comprehensive and informed support than I can offer here.
Recently I’ve been rewatching a school-based TV series I first viewed in the 1990s. There’s been a certain pleasure in the familiarity and nostalgia, but if I’m honest, the experience has also been jarring. The casual sexism, racism, homophobia and disablism that run through it are striking and shocking. And yet, my own privilege in combination with attitudes at that time meant I barely noticed this in my first encounter with the series.
Largely, I’ve found my rewatching experience so unsettling because of the societal shift I’ve lived through over the past 25-30 years. I’m not naïve enough to think that these views and attitudes vanished during this period, and I’m fully aware that my own identity means I am less likely to experience personal discrimination. However, since the early 2000s the dehumanising and prejudicial language commonplace in my youth (for example the ways disabled people were spoken about), has largely disappeared from professional spaces and became far less acceptable in conversation and mainstream popular culture. The language and attitudes depicted in the 90s TV series are unacceptable to my 2026 ears. However, rewatching this series in 2026 has been also unsettling for another concerning reason.
Over the past few years, I have witnessed an increase in the number of beginning teachers recounting real, immediate experiences of racism and prejudice in school settings; experiences of comments directed at pupils or teachers, heard in classrooms and corridors or overheard quietly in the staff room.
Barbara recounted a pupil using a homophobic insult towards their classmate during group work. Tom described hearing pupils casually discussing immigration using dehumanising language borrowed straight from headlines and social media. Rita was racially abused by a pupil in her class. Isaac, a neurodivergent beginning teacher, talked about overhearing colleagues dismissing disabled pupils using offensive terminology, framed as humour or frustration. The cumulative effect on these beginning teachers has been profound.
What connects these accounts is a sense of shock combined with uncertainty:
- What do I do with this?
- Who do I tell?
- Is it safe for me, as a trainee, to challenge this?
- If this is normalised here, what does that say about the profession I’m entering?
An emboldened climate
While society is generally a more tolerant than 30 years ago, and there are greater protections for people under legislation such as the Equalities Act, views that had been pushed to the edges are now appearing increasingly emboldened in the public discourse. The framing has shifted too: prejudice is often repackaged as free speech which simply tells it how it is. When such narratives are repeatedly modelled and legitimised in political rhetoric, online spaces, and sections of the media, it becomes easier for them to seep back into public discourse and everyday interactions, including the conversations we overhear in schools and staffrooms.
Beginning teachers are acutely aware of the tension that exists between their training and the reality of the world in which we live. As it becomes increasingly socially acceptable in the public discourse to say the unacceptable, it is no surprise that conversations of this nature are making the transition from society at large to local communities to then appear in our schools. Initial teacher training emphasises inclusive practice, anti-racism, safeguarding, and advocacy for pupils with SEND, while many beginning teachers themselves hold protected characteristics, and have intersectional identities, and are therefore directly affected by the very forms of dehumanisation and prejudice they witness being shared in school settings. As a result, their early professional experiences can be marked by significant cognitive and emotional dissonance and understandable anger. Meanwhile, school leaders are caught in the crossfire, facing an ongoing challenge in addressing discrimination in schools to safeguard pupils and staff, while maintaining relationships with the wider communities they serve.
The mentor’s role: beyond reassurance
Mentors cannot remove racism or discriminatory attitudes from society, and they cannot single‑handedly transform school cultures but they can create a relational space in which beginning teachers feel believed and supported. They play a crucial role in helping trainees hold on to the principles that brought them into teaching in the first place. However, mentors often find it hard to navigate situations where their mentee has observed or been the target of discrimination in schools.
So, how can mentors support their mentees if they report an incident of this nature?
Take disclosures seriously.
If a mentee raises concerns about racist/ dehumanising language or behaviour, mentors should take some time to listen before commenting. Mentors might feel shocked and unsure how to respond in the first instance. It is fine for a mentor to take a beat to gather their thoughts. Therefore, a listening approach really works. I statements such as ‘I am sorry that this is happening’ are often more helpful than you statements such as ‘you need to…’ It is important that mentors (and wider colleagues) do not try to distract or minimise or normalise the experience being reported.
Beginning teachers who have been the victims of racial abuse in school have commented on how important it was for colleagues to listen and seek to understand their experience and its impact upon them without leaping to try and justify the circumstances surrounding the incident. “That’s just how X is” or “don’t take it personally” closes down trust.
Name the issue.
Mentors can help mentees articulate what they are witnessing by using clear language: racism, ableism, microaggressions. This validates the mentee’s experience and helps them frame concerns professionally rather than emotionally. It also helps to separate the situation from other teaching practice challenges they may be experiencing, allowing beginning teachers to continue focusing on addressing their areas for development in the knowledge that the situation is being taken seriously and dealt with professionally.
Clarify boundaries and procedures.
Beginning teachers need explicit guidance on what should be logged (and how that can happen), what should be escalated, and who holds responsibility. Uncertainty increases isolation.
Where schools handle the raising of concerns well, beginning teachers have identified clear policies and communication of procedures around reporting and logging concerns that were shared at the start of placement alongside safeguarding training. It was also important to beginning teachers to have a central point of contact for information about procedures and next steps, as they often hadn’t always retained the information or realised how important it might be until they needed it. Having a colleague to walk them through the process was also valued.
They also reported senior leaders being proactively engaged in taking responsibility for a resolution to the situation and reaching out to the beginning teacher. This support has come in addition to the support offered by their mentor and close colleagues.
Protect beginning teachers from retaliation or exposure.
Where issues involve colleagues, mentors should take on the burden of challenging or escalating concerns rather than placing this expectation on a trainee teacher. In these situations beginning teachers are very concerned about how they will be perceived and received if they approach school leadership directly.
Model allyship.
Beginning teachers notice who speaks up in meetings, who challenges language, and who remains silent. Consistent modelling of inclusive professional behaviour is one of the most powerful forms of mentoring.
A collective responsibility
If we accept that schools are shaped by the wider social climate, then we must also accept that countering racism, ableism, misogyny, sexism and homophobia in education is collective work. Beginning teachers should not be expected to carry this alone. Mentors, teacher educators and school leaders all have a responsibility to create environments where harmful language is challenged, not tolerated, and where beginning teachers learn that inclusion is not just policy language but lived daily practice.
These conversations are uncomfortable. They are also a necessary reality of the times in which we live. Supporting beginning teachers through these moments is not only about safeguarding their wellbeing, but also about shaping the kind of profession they are being invited to join, and we want them to help build.
There are many resources available for mentors seeking to develop their practice in this area. Here are a few to get you started:
- Tereshchenko, Kaur and Wiggins’ (2023) resource Racial and Ethnic Microaggressions on School Placements A Resource for Mentors provides important insights for mentors seeking to better understand and support minoritised beginning teachers experiences in school placements.
- Dawkins’ (2021) A Glossary of Terminology for Understanding Transatlantic Slavery and Race, was produced to support teachers to hold respectful and non-offensive classroom conversations about race to promote understanding and social cohesion. This is a helpful resource for mentors looking to understand the harmful impact of certain terminology due to the historical origins of these words and their impact on people from ethnically diverse communities.
- BAMEed Network – Black, Asian & Minority Ethnic Educators are a grassroots charity aimed at ensuring diverse communities are represented as a substantive part of the education workforce. Their website offers support and signposting to resources.
- Anti‑Bullying Alliance’s (2020) Tackling disablist language based bullying in school: A Teacher’s Guide (p.10 onwards) explores the impact of disablist language on disabled pupils and includes guidance on why seeminglycasual language causes cumulative harm and certain words should not be used.
- National Education Union’s (2026) Getting started: A whole-school approach to preventing sexism and sexual harassmentbooklet argues that creating safer, more respectful school environments happens through collective responsibility, cultural change, and sustained action.
- Pride and Progress’ (2021) podcast interview on Initial teacher training, with Scotty Cartwright discusses a beginning teacher’s experience of being an LGBTQ+ teacher and the importance of their mentor in providing a supportive and affirming space for their experiences as they negotiated their teacher and personal identity in school.
- Belonging Effect formerly known as #DiverseEd started as a grassroots network committed to moving the agenda forwards regarding Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in our school system. There are many resources on this site but the blog section is a good place for mentors to start when looking for support to think through these issues.
References
Anti‑Bullying Alliance (2020). Tackling disablist language based bullying in school: A Teacher’s Guide. https://anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/sites/default/files/uploads/attachments/tackling-disablist-language-based-bullying-in-school-final.pdf
Brassington, J., & Brett, A. (Hosts). (2021, July 3). Initial teacher training, with Scotty Cartwright (Season 1, Episode 15) [Audio podcast episode]. Pride & Progress. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/id1560726186?i=1000527681294
Dawkins, J. (2021), A Glossary of Terminology for Understanding Transatlantic Slavery and Race, https://nottinghammuseums.org.uk/a-glossary-of-terminology-for-understanding-transatlantic-slavery-and-race/
National Education Union. (2026). Getting started: A whole-school approach to preventing sexism and sexual harassment. https://leap.hillingdon.gov.uk/media/15986/Whole_school_approach_to_sexism_and_sexual_harassment.pdf
Robinson, R. (2023). Anti-racism as care in initial teacher education: A personal view from a teacher turned early career researcher.BERA Blog, British Educational Research Association. https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/anti-racism-as-care-in-initial-teacher-education-a-personal-view-from-a-teacher-turned-early-career-researcher
Tereshchenko, A., Kaur, B., Wiggins, A. (2023). Racial and Ethnic Microaggressions on School Placements: A Resource for Mentors. UCL Institute of Education & Brunel University London: London, UK. UCL_Brunel_Leaflet_DIGITAL.pdf
Becoming a History Teacher 