Citizens UK community leaders are pleased to welcome the results of the Curriculum and Assessment Review (CAR), published on 5 November 2025 by the Department for Education. The review recognises that the school curriculum must reflect current social issues and the racial and cultural diversity of our society, one of the broad Racial Equity in Education campaign asks.

Community leaders across Citizens UK particularly wanted to see a greater representation of racially diverse populations across the UK, and their contributions to British society in different areas and across time.

As such, we welcome the overall recommendation that the curriculum should “reflect our diverse society and the contributions of people of all backgrounds to our knowledge and culture” (p.181). Additionally, we also welcome the CAR’s subject specific recommendations, to ensure that pupils’ learning experiences through their studies in history, English, science and art represent the “diversity of our society and contributions that have made it” (p33).

We want to celebrate the community leaders from Nottingham Girls’ Academy, member of Nottingham Citizens, who were visited by CAR panel chair, Professor Becky Francis, and contributed to the review.

While this reflects progress towards our Racial Equity in Education campaign goals, we know that there is more to be done

We're calling upon our member schools, school trusts, individual educators, young people, and parents to keep pushing for the translation of these national recommendations into local level change that will make a real difference to young people’s experiences at school, their sense of belonging by being represented in what they’re taught, and for everyone to learn about the richness of British society.

While we agree that the CAR is a positive step forward that we can build on, it can't be denied that there is a lot more work to do to ensure a truly racially equitable education system.

For this reason, we're calling upon the Government to keep pushing for changes that will make a new curriculum thrive. For example, using Heather Smith and Vini Lander’s Initial Teacher Training framework to make sure teachers are trained properly for teaching a more racially diverse curriculum. We also need to see teachers prepared for potential negative reactions by improving safeguarding guidance, such as ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’, so that race and racism is meaningfully included in the guidance and teachers are trained to deal with the rise of racism in our schools and across our society.

While we applaud the Government's ambition to recruit more teaching staff, we know that there is more to do to ensure that the staff force is representative of the communities they teach in.

Finally, our members will be pushing for local change and continue to work with national politicians.

Our greater ambition for a racially equitable education system remains, and we look to good practice in Scotland, through their Anti-Racism in Education Programme, and to Wales, through their Diversity and Anti-Racism Professional Learning (DARPL).

We hope to soon convene a roundtable discussion with decision makers, campaign leaders, leaders from devolved nations, and with our partner organisations to think about how further progress can be made.