In line with its historical roots, Black History Month has been celebrated throughout the month of February. It has not only led to a special focus in History lessons, but also expanded across campuses and departments.
This year has seen the largest amount of activities across our whole school, starting with a virtual assembly being shown to all secondary campus year groups. Covering the topics of 'what is Black History Month?', 'why do we celebrate it?' and 'what is going on around the school?'. This also introduced our speech writing activity for all students from Years 7-13, where they were tasked with writing a speech on a Black History Month topic of their choosing.
Our Library team in the Curve curated an excellent literature stand near the entrance to the library, where students could discover a tailored collection (also accessible virtually through Destiny Discover) with 80 titles to choose from. This included work from renowned black authors as well as seminal pieces of work around black culture and history.
Our Art department also curated a special art stand displayed outside the undercroft featuring important black artists, such as Kehinde Wiley, famous for painting the portrait of President Barack Obama.
In a similar fashion our PE deptartment had a standee near the sports hall with legendary black athletes for our students to discover.
All of our secondary campus year groups had a special Wellbeing lesson including items such as Cephas Williams’ “56 Black Men campaign” and a Ted talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: “The danger of a single story”.
In week 3 our Secondary students from Years 10 & 12 read stories to Junior and Early Years students. We had 14 students from Secondary read to 33 classes across our 2 other campuses. Each student introduced themselves and welcomed questions from the younger students, then read them a story based on a character or setting reflecting Black History Month and then discussed the books afterwards. It was so lovely to see the Year 10s and 12s interacting and leading younger members of our school community with such care and energy. The books were “So Much” for F1, F2 and F3, ‘Pretty Salma’ for Years 1, 2 and 3 and “Henry’s Freedom Box” for Years 4, 5 and 6. We definitely have some future teachers or TV presenters amongst our student body.
The Music department & History department came together to host a special Acoustic Lounge event on Friday 4th March to culminate the month, featuring students from Years 9-13 delivering musical performances and speeches. During this event our Higher Level IBDP Music students from Year 12 prepared a special performance for the school for their IB course, 3 original pieces of music to accompany a poem by Maya Angelou. This event also featured historians and teachers speaking about significant people of colour who have shaped the world.
You can watch back the wonderful performances below.
A huge thank you to all staff who assisted in creating such a special month, including Kelly Mason, Thomas Thurston, Anita Curley, Janet Williams, Ian Alexander, Emma Husband, Paolo Maling, Aziza Williams and Victoria Wheeler.
Rachael Lowry
Whole School Equality Champion