Over the past eighteen months this issue has been steadily rising within the policy agenda. In Aiming High, launched in 2003, the government for the first time put together a national strategy focusing on Black and minority ethnic achievement. Meanwhile under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, schools have to develop race relations policies and action plans to implement them.
Other initiatives - for example, data collection which enables schools to measure the attainment of their minority ethnic pupils against local, regional and national levels - help provide the tools for assessing and improving school performance.
Clearly the political will is there to support young people from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds in reaching their potential. But how can schools translate this into practice? For some, there is a tension between meeting the needs of their pupils and the pressure to achieve results - the five A-to-Cs at GCSE which make schools so desirable to parents.
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