The aim and purpose of this research was to explore how teachers choose texts to reflect the cultural representation in their class and the impact that this has on engagement.
The study utilised whole school training, phase and year group discussions to ascertain the gaps in representation within the core texts studied. The focus was children in Year 2 and their teachers, including two newly qualified. Evidence from the study suggests that when children see familiar cultural representation in a text they are more engaged and outcomes in writing are of a higher quality; using the end of KS1 assessment framework as an indicator. The project also demonstrated that when teachers are actively involved in this text selection then they
develop their own knowledge and use this to show positive presentations of BAME people across the curriculum.