Anti-racism statue, put up in memory of Stephen Lawrence and unveiled by his mother, no longer standing at primary school once led by award-winning headteacher

The statue which stood at Trinity in memory of Stephen Lawrence.

A statue, put up in memory of the murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence at a primary school which had prioritised anti-racism, no longer stands there after a multi-academy trust said it had been damaged in building work following the controversial departure of a high-profile headteacher.

Supporters of Pepe Hart, the former head of Trinity Church School, in Radstock in Somerset, told Education Uncovered that years of good work on anti-racism, which had seen the statue unveiled in 2013 by Stephen’s mother Doreen, had been written off as the academy chain running it removed all evidence of her long-running headship there.

The supporters also say that the school no longer has a quiet room which had also been established in Stephen’s memory, and which was said to have featured on its wall a supportive letter from the former manager of Stephen’s favourite football team: Arsene Wenger of Arsenal.

The trust concerned, called the Midsomer Norton Schools Partnership, which took over Trinity in 2016, said the statue had come down after it was “damaged beyond repair” by building contractors that year, and that the school now followed the national curriculum, celebrated diversity and that it built “on the work undertaken by the school in the past”.