This month marks the 40th anniversary of the Swann Report, a landmark document that exposed the systemic racism embedded in the UK’s education system. Its findings, commissioned in response to mounting evidence that Black and ethnic minority students were being failed, laid bare a national disgrace: Black Caribbean children were disproportionately placed in so-called ‘educationally subnormal’ (ESN) schools, denied their true potential, and condemned to a lifetime of disadvantage.
Yet, four decades later, the injustices of the past remain unresolved, and the structures that enabled them, have not disappeared – they have simply evolved. The same prejudices that fuelled the ESN scandal now manifest in modern education policies that disproportionately exclude, criminalise, and marginalise Black students. As we commemorate this anniversary, it is time to reckon with this history, demand accountability, and ensure that no child is ever again subjected to an education system that excludes rather than empowers.
The Swann Report, published in March 1985, emerged in response to growing concerns about the educational disparities facing Black and ethnic minority children. It followed years of activism, particularly driven by Bernard Coard’s 1971 pamphlet, How the West Indian Child is Made Educationally Subnormal in the British School System, which exposed the racist policies that relegated Black children to ESN schools.
By the late 1960s, nearly 30% of pupils in London’s ESN schools were Black, despite Black children making up just 15% of the wider school population. These schools, originally intended for children with severe learning difficulties, became warehouses for Black students who were neither mentally nor physically disabled but had been written off by a system rife with racial bias.
The Swann Report rightly identified that racism – not cultural background or ability – was the root cause of these disparities. It called for an inclusive, anti-racist education system, advocating for teacher training, curriculum reform, and greater parental engagement. The report’s recommendations were clear, yet they were largely ignored. Instead of systemic change, successive governments pursued punitive education policies that have continued to disproportionately harm Black students.
ESN schools no longer exist, but the mechanisms of exclusion and marginalisation persist in new forms. Today, Black students are disproportionately excluded from mainstream education, overrepresented in Pupil Referral Units (PRUs), and pushed into the criminal justice system. Research shows that Black Caribbean students in some areas are up to six times more likely to be excluded than their white peers. Once excluded, they face devastating outcomes: just 1% of children in PRUs achieve five good GCSEs, drastically limiting their future prospects.
Rather than addressing these disparities, government policies have reinforced them. The rise of ‘zero-tolerance’ behaviour policies, increased police presence in schools, and harsh exclusion regimes have exacerbated racial inequalities in education. In essence, the same biases that led to the ESN crisis continue to shape education policy today, ensuring that Black children remain disproportionately disadvantaged.
If Britain is serious about racial justice, it must confront this shameful chapter in its history. Survivors of the ESN scandal, supported by Leigh Day Solicitors, are calling for a public inquiry to uncover the full extent of the harm caused and to ensure that no future generation suffers the same fate. Their demands are not simply about historical reckoning but about justice – both for those who were failed in the past and for those who continue to be failed today.
A public inquiry must do more than acknowledge the wrongs of the past; it must examine how structural racism continues to impact Black children in education today. It must lead to concrete policy changes that dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline, eliminate racial bias in exclusions, and ensure that schools become places of opportunity rather than exclusion. Without this, history will continue to repeat itself.
The 40th anniversary of the Swann Report should not be a moment of quiet reflection but a rallying cry for urgent reform. The injustices it exposed have never truly been addressed, and the consequences continue to devastate Black communities. If the government is serious about equality, it must act now to amplify the voices of those who lived through the ESN scandal and fight for the justice they deserve. Our education system failed Black children then and we cannot allow it to fail them now.
‘Educationally Subnormal’ – The Education Scandal We Must Finally Confront
