Your cover story “Novelty factor or racism?” (TES magazine, December 14) raises the important issue of black and minority ethnic recruitment, which my agency takes very seriously.
The staffroom should reflect the classroom - that is why this year we have allocated more than pound;1 million to teacher training providers and have set up a grant scheme to support activities that help improve representation in subjects such as PE. This funding supports projects like the successful one run by Sara Bennett at the University of Exeter.
We have also worked with the Association for PE to support the investigation into the reasons why PE is under-represented - one of the reasons for this is the relatively small numbers of black and ethnic minority applicants.
The reasons behind this are not simply about racism but are much more complex.
Matthew Mitchell, Head of diversity, Training and Development Agency for Schools.
