the table over future tax changes, but says that the government will be �*compassionate�*. china's president xijinping has been defending his controversial zero—covid strategy as a historic communist party congress kicks off in beijing. now on bbc news...we are england: classroom revolution. it's difficult to pay attention in class when successful people in textbooks don't look like you and unsuccessful ones do. chaz and lawrence are on a mission to change that. for me school didn't really work. i went to six secondary schools

and moved from a lot of schools. when i looked through textbooks in school everybody that achieved, no—one ever looked like me. it kind of made you feel that you could never be great. when you look through education it is still a very bias eurocentric point of view. we're here to celebrate that we can make a change and we can be the difference that so many people want to see. learning about a more diverse history is a small step towards a greater understanding and an empathy with the rest of the world. massive attack have been brilliant. this is the legacy lonnie johnson has left for us all to ensure - we enjoy, work well. and always stand tall. that's the one! there are over 24,000 schools

in england, if we can reach 10% of those schools we'll be happy. it's like i'm being interrogated, guv. it wasn't me, i've got no comment to make, and i'd rather not be here. i met chaz in london in 2007. i think my book came out that i had just done and chaz actually said that he'd bought my book. i can remember i was like "you're the first person i know that bought my book". i met his work before i met the man. chaz is just a creative visual genius with what he does visually

making stuff like that and people who get to know me, i write, i talk, i'm a storyteller. i didn't want children to be me. i know it can sound silly a fundamentally that was it. the classroom is everywhere, the walls are invisible, the boundaries are none. we'll make it free, we'll make it as accessible as possible. i grew up mainly in easton and across to st paul's. when i was about two and a bit, three years old, my younger brother ended up being adopted and then i was sent away to go live with my grandparents and i came to bristol to live with my mum,

who was settling with who would become my stepfather. i suppose my whole thing with the police kind of started here. it's like, i canjust remember my mum went out to the car to go and get a bag or something from the car and she her face slashed and mugged just at the end, where they park the cars. and then she come back to the house with blood dripping down the side of her face and we just sat down on the stairs waiting for the police to turn up after she called them and they never came that evening. they never came. it was the following afternoon when the police came to the house. i kind of went a little bit off the rails because i'd done an exam called the 11 plus. i did really well so i was told that i'd get a scholarship, i was awarded a scholarship to go to a top school in bristol, a fee—paying school. i got to go and see my dorm, i was showed my bed and then i think 4—6 weeks later we got a letter, or i was then informed that that

would not be happening, we'd have to pay for this position. and i remember at that point i was like, even if i'm doing good i'm treated wrong so wrong it shall be. how's it feel to be back? there's a lot of memories here. that's what there is. there's also a lot of pain. i remember i was getting a beating once with a shoe and i remember taking the shoe out of the hand and throwing it down the stairs. i remember a discussion being held at the bottom of the stairs after. my stepdad saying to my mum "it's either him or me" and then later on that day social services came and took me away. my next stop was vinny green. vinny green was i suppose a big children's home. boys and girls were housed there. i went from being a child that was excelling in education to suddenly being given work

for a five—year—old. it was a very eurocentric curriculum and education and everybody that achieved, everybody that was great, was european so it kinda makes you feel less than when you're not seeing representation that looks like you being championed. so, that's why we do what we do we do. good afternoon, mary. good afternoon, noah. good afternoon, josh. keisha and good afternoon, mr hooper. how are you? good day so far? we're doing something a bit different today as you may have noticed. i learnt history but i didn't go to school to get told that this is white history then it's like an add—on it's "oh well, here's black history" it's not

really as important as history. this is black history. it shouldn't be an add—on to a curriculum, it is just history. i want to talk about how many black historical figures do you know about. owen, who is this man? i'm not really sure. 0k. kaisha, do you think you could help him out at all? i didn't he like help with a protestl for like black rights or something? absolutely and doctor martin luther king, he spent pretty much his whole adult life campaigning for black rights. do you learn about black history outside of black history month? so discuss with each other then we'll feedback, 0k? not really. definitely not as much as we should, it should be an annual thing. -

it shouldn't have to be, this is the month where you learn about this minority, and this is the one where you learn about this minority and all the rest of the time you have to learn about the majority. that shouldn't be how it is. we tend to resource black history lessons for ourselves. and you know that does take time, that does take a lot of effort. it would be fantastic if we had more resources to use straight off the bat. all right, guys thank you so much for all your hard work today. there were some fantastic responses. there is so much that i'm going to be looking at. i'm going to be looking at our curriculum and seeing what points we can add on.

can you give me a fact about world war ii? people were killed, or they got gassed. we get students that have often gone to several mainstream schools before. hi, lawrence, how are you? good, yeah, and you? for me, school didn't really work. so in children's homes, or even detention centres, any places like that with children being removed, i wanted for us to create something that could be used in all these different spaces notjust in school. guys, this is lawrence. lawrence, this is shahid and liam. we are about direct action. we're about getting in front of the students, getting - in front of the teachers.

i went to six secondary schools, i moved from a lot of schools. when i looked through textbooks in school, everybody that had achieved, no—one ever looked like me and it kind of made you feel that you could never be great. so, we make education resources, bringing to light stories and histories that are often not used in normal mainstream education. so we've got people like the haitian revolution and they fought against the english and the french to gain their freedom from enslavement. you've got samuel sharpe and paul bogle, and also someone called nanny of the maroons. what we're about is looking at the people who under great constraint achieved amazing things. look what they did, look what they achieved and we can all learn from their experiences. let's listen. i'll catch you and you, young man, and will be good, yeah. and just try and do the best that you can. just know that sometimes it can go

a little bit wrong but you can always kind of put it back together, yeah. all right. i'm going to be looking for things that sort - of hook their attention, _ get them excited, something visual, something like that, yeah. we're in a warehouse just on the outskirts of bristol. they'll learn more about this history and also some of the techniques and some of the skills needed to help them teach this in a more comfortable fashion.

if i can take anything out of today, hopefully a better understanding l of how to implement diversity into our curriculum. _ you know something with poetry or something visual as an art teacher. i'll be looking for, so something like that, yeah. morning, i'm lawrence hoo. we're here to celebrate that we can make a change and we can be the difference that so many people want to see. at the heart of a lot of our lessons are illustrations that tell a story about the individuals and also give it a kind of a contemporary context, because a lot of these characters are distant history. the national curriculum doesn't have to change for us to get this material into class. currently, classes are taught in modules of say, for example, the second world war or migration. so, our lessons are structured

around individuals. those individuals can be placed within those modules. what that does is has the effect of enhancing the learning of that section of history. there's one section that's coming up here which is covering pre—colonial map of africa, so to kind of trying to get the class to learn about, you know, what these civilizations were before they were rebranded. ijust wanted to kind of run through the series. so then we've got nanny the maroons, which is another image that's a similar kind of aesthetic. warrior queen. freedom and self—determination should be everyone's birthright. i nanny of the maroons, what an amazing story of a woman who single—handedly galvanised a whole community in the jungles ofjamaica to fight the british army back into retreat. yeah, i know, i hadn't

seen the pictures before and i was like "ping... oh, my god." hopefully that's sparked some interesting conversations. - so do we have any questions? what do you think is sort of the best way to sort of approach heads of department, senior leadership about bringing these lessons to the classroom? i would go in with that kind of, be inspiring. you walk straight into school. and you see four or five massive posters of individuals of african, african diaspora heritage. - i think then the kids are going - to start asking who is this person? and then they're going to start asking like is there a lesson i about this person and can we start, can we start learning about that? l david rawlings is amazing. he's one of the teachers that we've come across in ourjourney. he's devoted a lot of his time to helping us develop this material. and when he speaks, teachers listen. i think liam and shahid are really going to enjoy it. i think they'll enjoy hearing more of the poems and maybe doing some artwork around the images that they've seen in responding to those.

who wants a poster? we've got queen nzinga or imhotep. there's an imhotep one here. i'm going to put it up in my classroom next year. hopefully they ask a little bit about who they think it might be. why do i maybe have it in my classroom. hearing what they're talking about, hearing about the resources, - seeing the resources they have. yeah, it makes me feel confident . in applying that into the classroom. i think the woke thing comes from a perception that it's trend based what we're doing. that's really what they're getting at when they say woke. they're saying, well this isjust a bandwagon that you're jumping on. this is something that is just not going to be relevant in 10 years' time. it's been relevant for hundreds of years. wokejust makes me laugh. woke's a joke.

i was going through some old photographs trying to find some old pictures of my time in america and found this recipe for some prawn soup and i thought let's make it, cos this is from my from my mum's early days. so, yeah, let's see how i do. i'm going to do badly. guess what. i'm charles�*s mother. my mum's had a huge influence on my life, i mean she's been monumental. take a few of these, wash them out and they'll add a nice fragrance. she's taught me humility in the face of real oppression, real racism. it's starting to take shape. i grew up in the south of us and it was segregated america. schools were segregated, so black

children went to one school, white children went to another, communities were segregated. bon appetit or whatever they would say. boy, that's nice, isn't it? it's pretty good. we were surrounded by that heritage and history when i used to go to the us to see my grandparents. here we are camping, yeah, yeah. i don't know who took that one. that's got to be your dad. i used to look up at the picture on the wall of a newspaper cutting of my grandfather, who was one of the first activists who refused to sit at the back of the bus. most people will know rosa parks and her refusal to sit on the back of the bus. well, my father was the second person to do that in america. rosa parks was the third.

in real life i hold the role of her majesty's lord lieutenant. there are 97 of us across the country and in the absence here's the studio. 3d�*s given us access to use today. so it's actually called the mass hallucination studio so maybe everything we're seeing isn't even here. malizah is an incredible poet. she's gonna be delivering the lonniejohnson poem that the children will see

in their lesson plan. i'll show you the studio where you're gonna record. i've written all the poems that the lessons would be made from. we got seven different poets to deliver the poems so that hopefully people it helped to engage to a wider audience and malizah�*s one of those poets. there's euan. let's go and see euan. massive attack have been brilliant. they've written music for us, they've injected i'm not doing that. we're good. how are you doing, malizah? are you 0k? it's amazing. like, i rememberwhen i first started poetry i was like, oh, i'd love to do something, like i love massive attack and all that and it's like surreal, actually surreal. so yeah if you stick the headphones on. lonnie johnson worked for nasa.

he then invented the super soaker, the nerf gun and i thought that has got to be something that children have got to find enjoyable. the levels are set, so i'll just put it into record. so i thought that would be a good way of getting them engaged into science. lonniejohnson was born in mobile, alabama on october the 6th 1949, when racial discrimination and segregation were legal, not a crime. it's an informative—type piece so you want to put certain facts and information in there that the children, just by hearing the poem, they could get a good understanding of what lonniejohnson has done. this is the legacy lonniejohnson has left for us all. that's the one. you smashed that. i remember when i was in school we'd always talk about history, you know, it is only showing the bad stuff about us. i think having a positive

shine on our history is what everybody has always talked about from the beginning of time. well, the next stage is chaz will get his hands on it. he's then going to make a video that will go with the poem. we'll put that together, which is always captivating. i feel bit nervous, i'm not a history teacher but i'm excited to see what their outcomes are. i hope they enjoy it as well. just take it all in. eyes here. it's like sugar cane, 0k. looks like sugar cane, ok, cool. shahid, what can you see? it'sjamaican. why do you think that? there's the jamaican flag.

we're going to look at the poster and see what ideas they have about the figure on the poster, learn about the story of samuel sharpe and then we're going to create a artistic response to that. samuel sharpe was able to create his own movement through his standing in the community so you know people can look to that and go "well if people respect me then i can get what i want done." what i'd like you to do is make your own poster about some of the things you think are important based on some of the things that you think are important about the story. what's his name? samuel bravery sharpe. hi, lawrence. hi, beka, how are you i'm good, nice to see you again. i've come back and see what they think of it.

they're not going to sugarcoat it if they haven't enjoyed it or don't find it engaging. so what you've just done, the samuel sharpe lesson? yeah, we have, yeah. what we've done here is try to tell his story through artwork. yeah, so, liam, do you want to explain to me your picture? i've got the battle ships for when the protest got brutal. the victory for the people that believed in god to get out and i have the jamaican flag. it's a joy to see. yeah, are you pleased with yourselves? yeah. that's the longest the boys have ever stayed in a classroom. the fact that they were in there for so long and focused it was really good. i'm chuffed to bits. i think it was better than a normal lesson because in a normal lesson i would probably have walked out by now. and, i enjoyed myself. it's showing that you can educate

as long as you can engage in many different spaces because fundamentally it is storytelling and storytelling can cross across many forms of the curriculum. so the lesson today's title is, "what was the significance of queen nzinga's life?" i'm really hoping that they'll see this story of queen nzinga has been left out and why it's important to look at her life and look at the significance of it. african queens have ruled - admirably throughout the ages against invading colonisers, . who are illuminated on pages. queen nzinga is one such queen, . inspiring, resilient and regal, . who stood tall, proud and defiant knowing she was their equal. -

if you're bringing your children up within a monoculture, they stand to gain less than the individuals that have a broader understanding of the wider world around them. can you write down four reasons given by the poem why queen nzinga deserves a place in history? queen nzinga was a queen in africa, she was royalty, she came from a royal line and i think that's a lot that was removed from what african history was. it was civilised, it had royalty. i think she deserves a place - in history because she managed ito fight against the portuguese i and other europeans for 30 years and still keep them at bay, - which i think is really amazing. definitely, yeah. owen, what was that word we used earlier? she was trusted and loyal, what did she have from the people around her? what did she have? respect. she was able to lead - a revolution of and unite

all of the african kingdoms - who were rivals at that time to be able to fight off the europeans. excellent, yeah. you haven't looked at any other sources today apart from the poem and the poster and look how much you've gotten out of that. yeah, i'm really happy, i think it went really well. what i really wanted them to get from it is i wanted to get some of theirjuices flowing in terms of what they were thinking and open their minds up. a lot of different things like that we would not normally learn about in our normal history lessons. she seems like a very strong and powerful person that affected quite a lot of countries and people. i'd never heard of her before - and she's such an inspiring figure but it's so surprising and appalling to me that we've never— heard about her before. there is a hunger. there is a hunger for more, there's a hunger for change whether that's coming from the kids themselves or whether that's coming from the teachers. there is, there is a need

for something new. we're not arrogant enough to believe we have the answer. we haven't got the answers were a tiny part of the puzzle. hello there, well we've still got quite a bit of sunshine around at the moment but cloud is beginning to encroach from the south and the west. that cloud is associated with this area of low pressure that is going to be bringing some wet weather overnight northwards across

the country. so rain will begin to arrive as we head towards this evening, across southern england wales and northern ireland as well. initially clear and dry for the start of the night in scotland but the rain arrives later on here and with the wind is coming generally from a southerly direction is quite mild temperatures for many of us about ten to 14 celsius. now tomorrow we do start off with rain around, the rain band clears away from eastern england fairly smartly but in scotland it willjust be easing from general outbreaks to more blustery showers as we head into the afternoons are quite unsettled across the north west but increasing amounts of sunshine for england and wales, and it's going to be another very mild day for the time of year reaching 19 in london the october average being 16 that's the october average being 16 that's the latest weather.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines. prime minister liz truss and chancellorjeremy hunt will hold talks at chequers, the pm's country house, later as the uk government tries to salvage its economic credibility. the uk chancellor, jeremy hunt, tells the bbc that nothing is off the table over future tax changes but says that the government will be compassionate. i'm not taking anything off the table. i want to keep as many of those tax cuts as i possibly can because our long—term health depends on being a low tax economy. i receive enough letters from people demanding a contest. and i think graham brady, its chairman, may well go to liz truss and say that, unless she agrees to step down, then a contest will have to be held.

the rules will have to be changed.