Diversity Council
Everyone is welcome here.
Everyone can be the best that they can be.
The Diversity Council is a group of children from across the school that meet regularly to discuss and act on issues involving diversity, equality and inclusion.
We all believe strongly that everyone should be treated fairly and have the same opportunities. We believe that no person should be discriminated against because of their age, gender, colour of their skin, culture, family background, disability or identity.
We want every child in the school to feel welcome and happy here and for everyone to know that they have an equal chance to be the best that they can be. We work with Dr. Wilce-Cordner to think of ways in which we can be inclusive and promote diversity.
The Diversity Council meets each term to discuss actions and next steps. This year, one of our key priorities is to get the school using sign language. We want to introduce sign language to promote inclusion and help everyone communicate with each other.
Click on the links below to access the minutes of recent Diversity Council meetings:
Term 2 2024: Diversity Council agenda and minutes Dec 2024
Term 1 2024: Diversity Council agenda and minutes Oct 2024
New School Prayer!
The Diversity Council reviewed our traditional school prayer and decided that it could be improved! Here is the traditional school prayer that we usually say at the end of every assembly:
This is our school.
Let peace dwell here.
Let the rooms be full of contentment.
Let love abide here.
Love of one another,
Love of mankind,
Love of life itself,
And love of God.
Let us remember
That, as many hands build a house,
So many hearts make a school.
Amen
Although we like lots of elements of this traditional prayer, we felt that it could be more inclusive and representative of our school values. The Diversity Council asked their class for ideas about how we could adapt the original prayer. We put everyone's ideas together and came up with a new Diversity Council prayer to use in assemblies:
Click here to download the prayer: Diversity Council Prayer
Our next step is to learn how to sign the prayer using Makaton.
Representation
Through assemblies and class discussion, we have learnt that representation is important if we want everyone to feel valued and be the best that they can be. We have learnt about stereotypes and how they can be harmful in preventing people from being the best that they can be. We agreed that being caring or good at sport is not defined by your gender!
Class Names
We thought about our class names and whether they represented our school community. We decided that something needed to change!
To start with, we did a survey and over 100 suggestions for class names were made! We also asked each class what they would like to be called.
When choosing our class names, the following things were important:
Does the person represent our school values?
Does the person match our school theme of discovery?
We were looking for all types of scientists and discoverers so that everyone could find a role model or inspiration in our names. We wanted a set of names that represented our school community better. We worked hard to put a list of suggestions together and some of us visited the Senior Leadership Team to explain our choices and ask for the names to be changed.
We are pleased to say that some of the names did change! We didn’t need to change them all and we wanted to keep some of the original class names as they are part of our school history. We did an assembly to the whole school to tell them about the changes. It was really nerve-wracking and exciting! We were really proud of ourselves for making a difference.
We have worked hard to make sure that everyone has someone to be inspired by here and that we have representation from all genders and skin colours, those with disabilities both neuro and physical, discoverers that come from all types of families and backgrounds and those that are part of the LGBTQ+ community.
Here is the letter that has been sent to all parents about the class name change:
Letter to Parents - Class names
School Resources
We looked at some of the learning resources we have in school, particularly books, to make sure they have good representation. Now, each classroom has a 'Reading Tree' with more diverse books and there is a Diversity Council recommendation section in our library.
If you have any ideas about how our school resources could better promote diversity or inclusion, then please speak to your class council member and we will bring your ideas to our meetings.
House Name Change
Following our big project to change some of our class names, The Diversity Council worked hard to change our House names too.
The children felt that although the previous House names – Scott, Shackleton, Cook and Franklin - tied in with the theme of ‘discovery’, they didn’t represent our school community in terms of diversity and values.
As we had already changed our class names to more diverse people, the children wanted something completely different. First, The Diversity Council asked the children in their classes for ideas. The first list of ideas had 36 suggestions! Although they were great ideas it made it really difficult to choose. So the council decided to choose some of their favourite ideas and ask the school to vote.
Each class voted for their top three ideas. In first place – the idea that became our new House names was: Gemstones!
Each colour house is now represented by a different gemstone:
Red - Garnet
Blue - Topaz
Yellow - Citrine
Green – Peridot
The gemstones also link to our school values of perseverance, respect, friendship, kindness and honesty. Click on the link below to find out more about this:
Diversity Council House Name Change Presentation
Here are some of our thoughts about equality and ideas we have for diversity projects and improvements:
"I think girls are still treated differently to boys, I want to live in a world where everyone is treated fairly" - Emily, Year 5
"I'm not from England and I want everyone to know that it doesn't matter where you are from, you should be treated equally" Ilvy, Year 5
"I believe in feminism and want to end any discrimination because of your race or nationality" Iris, Year 5
"I want women to have equal rights" Kaavya, Year 4
" I would like to challenge the way that men are presented to be better or stronger than women. Everyone has weaknesses and get strength from different things" Eva, Year 6
Additional Work
As well as the work with The Diversity Council, the school has taken a number of positive actions with staff and the wider school to ensure that we remain at the forefront of the promotion of diversity, equality and fairness. We want our children and staff to be able to recognise and challenge any kind of discrimination.
So far this year:
1. We have had whole staff training on adopting and anti-racist approach, racial micro-aggressions and their impact.
2. Teachers have had CPD to identify and address representation in the texts that we use in school - including our reading scheme, curriculum texts and book corners. The school has invested thousands of pounds on high quality texts to ensure that our curriculum offer is broad and that all groups have positive representation in what we are presenting to children.
3. Children have had weekly assemblies promoting all areas of diversity
4. We have joined schools and organisations around the country in marking celebration, awareness and acceptance weeks - such as Black History Month, Autism Acceptance Month, International Women's Day, Women's History Month etc.
5. Governors have had training on diversity and inclusion, including anti-racism
You may also be interested in the following pages of our school website:
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)