‘Show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become,” said the celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on the dangers of providing a single interpretation of the experiences of a particular group. Her words came to mind when I heard the recent news of young children being taught that they are not “racially innocent” by some teachers following the narrative set out for them by Black Lives Matter campaigners.

Race is a complicated subject, and how children are taught about it matters deeply – especially in this period of heightened, sometimes hysterical, “culture wars”.

Many will therefore have been cheered by the announcement that the Government plans to forbid teachers from promoting Black Lives Matter to children as part of a crackdown on politics in the classroom. New guidance from the Department for Education says that discussions about “contentious and disputed” topics, such as the British Empire, must be held in a balanced manner.

However, schools are already required to teach in an impartial way under the Education Act of 1996. Issuing new guidance may well do some good, but there is a danger that this announcement alone will not go the whole way to solving the problem. We must do more to understand why it is that damaging and politicised narratives are being taught to children in the classroom.

Our schools are not filled by uniformly far-Left teachers who are determined to indoctrinate young minds with radical new ideologies. Teachers are, however, unequipped to address some of the complex subjects – including the legacy of empire – that children rightly want to learn about.

One of the problems is that, when teachers look for resources on which to base their lesson plans, the only material that is readily available online is produced by Black Lives Matter-style organisations.

They can easily find PowerPoints and worksheets about the pervasiveness of white privilege. Yet there are very few websites to draw from that provide a holistic view on the complexities of race. To the uninformed, quite radical views on race and empire can appear mainstream.

That is a vacuum that needs to be filled with an infrastructure of resources, based on the input of the wider community, and which captures the views of those black people who are less radical than race scholars. They exist, believe me, and deserve a much greater voice.

Some organisations, such as the Equiano Project, are attempting to do just that, but they will need money and support from the Government to have a major impact. This is a slower but more strategic course of action.

We need to work with teachers, many of whom have been hurled into the culture wars without a choice. They face a Herculean task in explaining the complexities of history or debates about race, so we should make it easier for them to understand – and then to teach – different viewpoints, including the views of black people who do not hold extreme opinions about issues such as slavery and race.

It will take more than new Government guidance to achieve this in the classroom – and much more to achieve it in society as a whole.