Resulting from their racial superiority complex, In 1960s and 70s Britain, hundreds of black children were labelled as "educationally subnormal", and wrongly sent to schools for pupils who were deemed to have low intelligence.
For the first time, some former pupils have spoken about their experiences for a new BBC documentary.
In the 1970s, at the age of six, Noel Gordon was sent to what was known at the time as an "educationally subnormal" (ESN) boarding school, 15 miles (24km) from his home.
"That school was hell," says Noel. "I spent 10 years there, and when I left at 16, I couldn't even get a job because I couldn't spell or fill out a job application."
About a year before joining the ESN school, Noel had been admitted to hospital to have a tooth removed. He was given an anaesthetic, but it transpired that Noel had undiagnosed sickle cell anaemia, and the anaesthetic triggered a serious reaction.
Noel says the resulting health issues led to him being perceived as having learning disabilities and being recommended for a "special school". Yet no evidence or explanation of his disability was ever given to him or his parents.
"Someone came and said they'd found "a special boarding school with a matron where they'd take care of my medical needs", says Noel.
During that conversation they also said Noel was "a dunce. Stupid."
But Noel's parents were not made aware that his new school was for the so-called educationally subnormal. They had moved to England from Jamaica in the early '60s and had high expectations for their son's education.
During his first night at the boarding school, six-year-old Noel lay alone in bed, crying for his mum. The school felt cold and institutional.
"I can still smell the old wooden flip desks. Oh, and being
racially abused on my first day," he says.
A
student hurled racial slurs at him in the classroom but wasn't reprimanded - the teacher simply told him to sit down.
His parents only realised what kind of school it was when Noel, then seven, was punched by a 15-year-old boy, and his father visited for the first time.
Noel recalls his father saying to the headmaster, "This is a school for handicapped children" - using an outdated term. He says the headmaster replied, "Yeah, but we don't like to use that word, we call them slow learners."
The realisation was devastating, but Noel's father felt powerless to change things.
The term "educationally subnormal" derived from the 1944 Education Act and was used to define those thought to have limited intellectual ability.
"That label made children feel inferior," says education campaigner Prof Gus John, who came to the UK from Grenada in 1964 as a student, and soon became aware of the issue.
"Students from ESN schools wouldn't go on to college or university. If they were lucky, they'd become a labourer. The term was paralysing and killed any sense of self-confidence and ambition."
Black students were sent to these schools in significantly higher proportions. The documentary makers have seen a 1967 report from the now-defunct Inner London Education Authority (ILEA), which showed that the proportion of black immigrant children in ESN schools (28%) was double that of those in mainstream schools (15%).
"The percentage of black children in ESN schools relative to black students in normal schools was scandalous," says Gus John.
But why were so many black children defined as subnormal?
Figures from the 1960s and '70s show that on average, the academic performance of black children was lower than their white counterparts. This fuelled a widespread belief that black children were intellectually inferior to white people.
Many teachers saw black children as intellectually inferior, and feared that too many black pupils in a class would depress the attainment of white pupils.
Following a protest by white parents in Southall, west London, in June 1965 the government issued guidance which underlined the social, language and possible medical needs of immigrant children, and suggested maintaining a limit of about 30% of immigrants in any one school.
As a consequence, many local authorities adopted the policy of bussing - sending immigrant children to schools outside their local area in an attempt to limit the number of ethnic minorities in schools.
The practice finally ended in 1980.
"The
education system fuelled and legitimised the idea that black Caribbean children were less intelligent than other children. This was why so many of them ended up at ESN schools. It was rampant racism," says Gus John.
Many wrongly equated race with intellectual ability. But as the late educational psychologist Mollie Hunte argued, the generally poor attainment of black students wasn't because of their intellectual ability. Instead, the tests used to assess pupils at the time were culturally biased.
According to Prof John, teachers didn't try to understand the cultural barriers black children faced, and the assessments didn't consider their domestic and socioeconomic circumstances - or the impact of migration. Many children would travel to the UK only once their parents had settled in. They arrived in an unfamiliar country to live with virtual strangers, who they had not seen for years.
"This displacement and movement caused a lot of trauma," says Prof John. "There was grief and bereavement. Those children would often not see their grandparents again."
Maisie says that the decision to send her to an ESN school was a mistake that ruined her life chances. Like Noel, she wasn't taught a curriculum.
"We played games, had discos… I call it a 'free school' because the education was so basic and we played a lot more than we worked," she says.
It was only in her 30s, decades after being sent to the ESN school, that Maisie was diagnosed with dyslexia.
"Rather than help me with my learning difficulties, I was simply dismissed as stupid. Teachers never took the time to find out why I struggled with learning. That messed up my confidence," she says.
"I was slow, but a teacher should have taken the time to help me learn."
According to Maisie, the lack of learning and support was only part of the problem.
"
I went to a school that was a racist institution," she says.
Initially, many Caribbeans who migrated to the UK during the 1960s and '70s, had a favourable view of ESN schools. Often referred to as "special schools" by teachers,
Caribbean parents, with little understanding of the British education system, thought these schools would provide better support and learning for their children.
"
When my mother was told that I'd been recommended for a special school, I remember her smiling. She thought that a special school meant a better school," says Maisie.
This presumption about "special" schools was also informed by Caribbeans' experiences of schools back home.
"British education was seen as a route to social mobility and the aspirations of parents were very high," says Gus John. "Teachers had a high profile in Caribbean communities, and
parents initially trusted British teachers. It was a shock to find out that their children were being defined as subnormal."
In 1971, a book called "How the West Indian Child is Made Educationally Subnormal in the British School System", proved instrumental in shifting the opinion of black parents. The author, Grenadan writer and teacher Bernard Coard, taught in an ESN school and had noticed the high number of Caribbean children there. When a group of concerned parents asked him to look into the issue, he wrote the book in record time.
He argued that
ESN schools were being used by the education authorities as a "dumping ground" for black children, and that teachers were mistaking the trauma caused by immigration for a lack of intelligence.
In the '60s and '70s, black children were wrongly sent to schools for the "educationally subnormal".
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