Footballer Troy Deeney to continue efforts to diversify national curriculum

Footballer Troy Deeney has no intention of giving up on his pursuit to diversify the national curriculum but has admitted to being “disappointed” at a lack of progress after his meeting with Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi.

The Birmingham City forward started a campaign in February to make the teaching of the history and experiences of black, Asian and ethnic minorities mandatory in schools with a petition launched and an open letter written to the Government.

Deeney commissioned his own YouGov survey at the start of the year which found the majority of British teachers surveyed think the school system has a racial bias and only 12% feel empowered to teach diverse topics.

Channel 4 captured the efforts of the 33-year-old in a documentary broadcast on Monday titled Troy Deeney: Where’s My History? where a number of high-profile figures like David Harewood and Anthony Joshua spoke about their own struggles while being taught the current national curriculum.

Deeney hopes the 60-minute show, which was shown three months after he started his campaign, can keep the topic at the forefront of people’s minds.

“We wanted to keep working, keep pushing and as you have seen there are a lot of phases in media,” he told the PA news agency.

“At the moment it is all about pitch invasions and when that goes, what is the next thing?

“It is very difficult to keep pushing people but we do want to make it as clear and obvious to everybody that this is something that won’t go away.

“It is still a topic that has not been addressed and it will only go away with it being addressed and substantial change happening.”

During the documentary, a range of different interviewees concurred one of their biggest early memories of history was to discover black people were slaves and Deeney feels more people from diverse backgrounds must be recognised for their achievements in the national curriculum.

Within hours of Deeney’s open letter being published, he received a reply on Twitter from Mr Zahawi, the Education Secretary, and the pair enjoyed a “positive” meeting in March but the experienced footballer had expected more progress in the months since even if a new history curriculum is being worked on.

He added: “It was all right, it was just a genuine chat at first to understand who we are and what we are doing but I have been a little bit disappointed at the speed of the follow up.

“I can’t lie about that.

“I want it to be a bit more.

“Not necessarily in terms of impact but in terms of direction of what we want to do and how we want to do it or how he sees it.

“At the minute it is a lot of batting things (back and forth) so that is a little bit disappointing but I can’t necessary say he has dismissed me out of hand because he hasn’t.

“He has been very pleasant, he has been very nice but I want us to get to a position where we get the 100,000 signatures and then we can present people like Lavinya (Stennett, founder of The Black Curriculum) and all the other smarter individuals to present the cases because they have the stats.”

Deeney was speaking from Portcullis House where a private screening of the Channel 4 documentary was shown to a range of different guests including MPs Layla Moran and Kim Johnson in addition to footballer Ivan Toney.

A panel discussion and Q&A occurred afterwards, hosted by David Olusoga, author of Black And British: A Forgotten History, where The Black Curriculum founder Stennett highlighted the importance of teachers being comfortable enough to create an environment where the history of black, Asian and ethnic minorities can be taught.

“(We’re) always hitting brick walls but like anything we are at more than 62,000 signatures so you would like to think once people have watched it and people that leave here, you get more and we will keep pushing and we will get there,” Deeney insisted.

“I felt we all learnt, not only the audience but the MPs and I have certainly come away thinking about what next.”

The Department for Education has been approached for comment.