Preventing hair discrimination in schools

This non-statutory guidance is for school leaders.

It is not mandatory for schools to have rules on hair or hairstyles. However, if your school does have these rules, make sure your policy is lawful and staff are trained on your policy to eliminate discrimination and safeguard pupils.

This guidance is part of a package of resources designed to help school leaders foster an inclusive environment by ensuring their policies, where they develop and review them, are not discriminatory. Our other resources include:

• a decision-making tool
• a video explainer and a case study

Although we reference other protected characteristics in this guidance and decision-making tool, the resources focus on race because of the disproportionate impact upon pupils from specific racial groups.

Schools are encouraged to use these resources to support their efforts in preventing discrimination and harassment related to hair.

Background

Our engagement with stakeholders and their research has shown discrimination related to hair or hairstyles disproportionately affects pupils from specific racial groups. This is often because of the way some school rules relating to hair or hairstyles are designed and implemented. Such rules might be embedded in school uniform or behaviour policies or be standalone policies related to hair or hairstyles.

This is supported by court cases where certain schools’ rules on hair or hairstyles have been found to indirectly discriminate against children with Afro-textured hair. This is an area where we have funded court cases as part of our Legal Support Project to tackle discrimination in education.

It has also been recognised in Inclusive Britain: government response to the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities that some Black pupils are being discriminated against because of their hair. Discriminating against pupils because of their Afro-textured hair may have a negative effect on pupils’ mental health and wellbeing.

Hairstyles worn because of cultural, family and social customs, can be part of a pupil’s ethnicity and therefore fall under the protected characteristic of race.

Some schools may have particular policies or rules related to hair or hairstyles which indirectly discriminate against pupils with certain protected characteristics, for example:

• race
• religion or belief
• sex
• disability
• sexual orientation
• gender reassignment.

Indirect discrimination can happen when a school applies an apparently neutral policy or practice that puts pupils sharing a protected characteristic (for example, race) at a disadvantage compared to pupils who don’t share that characteristic.

A school policy that bans certain hairstyles adopted by specific racial or religious groups, without the possibility of any exceptions on racial or religious grounds, is likely to constitute indirect race or religion or belief discrimination. This includes hairstyles such as (but not limited to): head coverings, including religious based head coverings and African heritage head wraps, braids, locks, twists, cornrows, plaits, skin fades and natural Afro hairstyles.

Such policies are likely to be indirectly discriminatory unless the school can show the policy is objectively justified as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. For more detailed information about what indirect discrimination is please see paragraphs 5.20 – 5.39 of our Technical Guidance for Schools in England and paragraph 5.25 of our Scotland Technical Guidance for Schools.

We use two types of examples to help illustrate this guidance: 

• case law examples, which relate to actual legal cases involving discrimination based on hair
• good practice examples, which illustrate how school policies can cause indirect discrimination.

Schools have a safeguarding obligation to protect pupils from race discrimination and bullying. It is good practice for schools to invest in professional development and training for staff in this area.

It is also good practice for schools to provide training for staff on the school’s duty to foster good relations and eliminate unlawful discrimination and harassment related to hair. Training can help staff to understand and support compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty in schools.

Schools can foster equality throughout the year by organising a range of activities that include Black role models and that celebrate Afro-textured hair, for example.

When drafting or reviewing your school’s policy, you can also use our decision-making tool to help eliminate any potential discrimination related to hair.