Campaigners and victims call for inquiry into Windrush children’s education scandal

Children of the Windrush generation wrongly labelled “educationally subnormal” and sent to schools for disabled pupils, say they will not give up their fight for justice.

Leigh Day solicitor Frances Swaine and Kim Johnson, MP for Liverpool Riverside, called on the government to launch a statutory inquiry into the scandal – which took place in the 1960s and 70s – during a debate in Parliament on Wednesday.

Ms Swaine said: “My clients are living with the tragic consequences of being labelled educationally subnormal as children. 

“It was a consequence of deep-rooted racism which, to our shame, is still rooted in our education system with consequences displayed in our prisons and workforce.

“We trust that those with the power to help will make sure that racist attitudes which still persist, are exposed.”

Maisie Barrett, 65, of Elmers End, Beckenham, was sent to an ESN school aged six.

Her education mainly consisted of drawing. When she was transferred to a mainstream school aged 13, she had fallen too far behind to catch up.

She said: “In my 20s I tried to write to my mother to ask for money to come home, but I could hardly read and I struggled to write.”

Thirty years later she was diagnosed with dyslexia.

Ms Barrett has since achieved three university degrees, but says her own children have suffered the consequences of her childhood, with poverty leading to spells in prison and periods of mental ill health.

She said: “If I had proper schooling, my life could have been very different.”

Some children were sent to ESN schools simply because they had a strong Jamaican accent, Ms Swaine said, or because they failed a culturally biased IQ test. Potentially hundreds were affected.

Audrey Henry, 67, of Peckham, moved to the UK aged 10, to live with her mother who had immigrated seven years earlier.

She was sent to an ESN school in Birmingham, where she was taught woodwork and sewing.

She said: “At my first job interview they asked what O-levels I had. I had no idea what they were.”

Ms Henry worked in factories before moving into catering at establishments and schools. 

She said: “It could have been different. I could have had choice, and not just taken what I had to get by.”

Denise Davidson, 69, of Lewes Road, Bromley, was sent to Shillington secondary school, an ESN school in Battersea, aged 12.

She said: “When I was in Jamaica at school none of the children was sitting in the wheelchair and none of the children was wearing a baby’s bib around their neck, yet here I was seeing my school friends in this situation.”

When her mum tried to get her transferred to a comprehensive school, Ms Davidson said her parents were told by teachers, “Denise is a lovely girl, and she is a credit to you. However, at this point I think Denise should remain where she is because she is a cretin”.

She said: “I remember returning home and my dad finding a dictionary to look up the word cretin. My mum was sobbing, she thought I had some disease.”

Ms Davidson was later diagnosed with Dyslexia. She attended university aged 50 and qualified as a children’s social worker.

She said: “The same fundamental failures exist in our education system today.

“I see elements of what I went through in the way teachers deal with children who are not English. Many of these children have no voice.”

On Tuesday, survivors shared their testimonies in parliament to mark the 40th anniversary of the Swann Report, which exposed systemic racism in the education system and called for urgent reforms.

Ms Davidson said: “These conversations, no matter how uncomfortable they are, must not be pushed under the carpet. There is a long road ahead but we are not going away.”

Catherine McKinnell, the education minister, said the government does not plan to establish a public inquiry, but is “more committed than ever to tackling the disparities in educational outcomes that persist.”

She said: “This government is committed to ensuring Britain is a country that will respect your contribution and will give you a fair chance to get on in life”.

Ms McKinnell will meet MP Johnson next week to discuss the decision.

Pictured top: Denise Davidson, Maisie Barrett, Professor Christine Callender, Roger King, Sara Bafo, Rene Stevens, Frances Swaine, Dr Cynthia Pinto, Noel Gordon (Picture: Melissa McCrow)