BOLTON School has confirmed it will carry out a “meaningful” consultation into its educational provision in the light of the recent Black Lives Matter protests.

Last week, students and alumni of the school wrote an open letter to headteachers and governors calling on them to broaden the curriculum to “tackle both casual and systemic racism” in the wake of the death of George Floyd in America.

The letter, which received over 1,400 signatories of former and current students in less than 24 hours, stated that “Bolton School is itself tied to colonialism” through its benefactor “William Hesketh Lever’s profiting from a soap factory in the Belgian Congo through the Belgian system of forced labour”.

It urged the school to make changes to the curriculum, improve anti-racism training and promote a more diverse staff recruitment policy.

The school’s headteachers, Sue Hincks and Philip Britton, have now responded with an open letter of their own in which they confirm they will begin a consultation at start of the next academic year with its results to be published at the end of September.

Ms Hincks and Mr Britton said: “We have been impressed and proud at how the school’s alumni, current pupils, parents and staff have grasped the moment and condemned racism in all its forms, and welcome your participation in this discussion.

“Whilst we share your sense of urgency and have already started to engage current pupils and to think about curriculum reviews, we do want our response to events of the past two weeks to be meaningful and have long-term impact.”

Both headteachers confirmed they would lead the consultation themselves.

They said: “We expect the review will explore issues such as how we can further develop consideration of racism and discrimination in the curriculum, developing our pastoral and welfare provision for BAME pupils, looking again at how we might encourage strong applications for employment from the BAME community and providing ongoing training for staff on promoting diversity and the elimination of unconscious bias.

“We believe that this consultation will help us to evaluate where changes are necessary, and, crucially, provide a clear framework and timescale for how its recommendations for change should be implemented”.

The letter invites alumni to contribute to the consultation and share their experiences, in confidence, by emailing BLMConsultation@boltonschool.org