The prestigious Scottish boarding school attended by King Charles III has begun offering pupils lessons in anti-racism.
Gordonstoun, the Elgin-based independent school which charges some boarders nearly £50,000 per year, is among 100 clients including the Premier League, BT and Marie Curie to enlist the racial equity analytics firm Flair.
According to the company’s website, the school has enlisted the firm – set up in 2020 – to “lay the right foundations to measure and progress racial equity”.
Following a survey about race and diversity at Gordonstoun, handed out to staff and pupils, the school “quickly” took several measures aimed at improving its credentials on race, according to Flair.
These included setting up two new prefect roles – that of a captain of equality, diversity and inclusion, and a captain of racial equality – instigating a curriculum audit across all subject areas, and launching a PSHE curriculum to create focused lessons on anti-racism, Flair said.
The school also set up “a network of students whose voices will help to lead change” and revamped “the displays across all curricular areas to show greater diversity, particularly with regard to role models”, the company said.
Following the survey, the firm used the results to profile the school’s diversity and to attempt to measure how frequently racism occurred, how staff and students were likely to respond if witnessing racism, and whether race was a “barrier” to feeling included.
It comes two years after the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry heard from a former pupil – who attended the school from 1979 – that children at Gordonstoun regularly displayed racist and sexist behaviour.
Queen Elizabeth II opened Gordonstoun’s sports centre in 1967 when Prince Charles was head boy at the school— (Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
The woman, referred to as Jane, described “cruel” behaviour from some boys at the school, who she recalled going on a “Jew hunt”, and claimed that two girls from Africa in her house would “definitely” have described the racism they were subjected to as “unliveable”, the BBC reported.
The ex-pupil told the inquiry that teachers at Gordonstoun and its preparatory school Aberlour House had showed a lack of boundaries, and that she had unsuccessfully tried to get herself expelled after feeling unsafe there.
The school apologised at the time to anyone who suffered abuse in its care.
Set up in 1934 and named after the 150-acre estate owned by Sir Robert Gordon in the 17th century, the school counts three generations of the royal family among its alumni, including Prince Philip and his three sons, Charles, Edward, and Andrew, along with his daughter Princess Anne’s children, Peter Philips and Zara Tindall.
Other famous former pupils include author William Boyd, “Flower of Scotland” composer and Corries member Roy Williamson, and the children of musician David Bowie and actor Sir Sean Connery.
