Diversity Week
What is Diversity Week?
To celebrate Black History month, we held our annual 'Diversity Week' to set the tone for the rest of the year and our curriculum. We continue to weave this important area into our core curriculum through the work we do! We learned about BAME authors, poets, artists, scientists, mathematicians and contributors to History and Geography and explored the themes of prejudice and difference in our ‘Creative Writing’ and ‘Maths through Story/Real Life Maths’ lessons.
EYFS: As part of our whole school Diversity Week, we read Handa’s Surprise by Eileen Browne. We tasted and described the tropical fruit Handa packed to share with her friend. We enjoyed talking about healthy fruit snacks we have school and at home. We used puppets and acted out the story as well. We also made some patterned necklaces inspired by West African cultures.
Year 1: In our Diversity Week Maths through Story lesson, we read the story We're Different, We're the Same, where Elmo and his Sesame Street friends helped us to understand that everyone is the same on the inside, and it's our differences that make this wonderful world, which is home to us all, an interesting and special place. We also read the story Coming to England, by Baroness Floella Benjamin. Her story taught us about perseverance and determination. 
Year 2: In Creative Writing, we read the story of ‘Mr George Baker’. He was a 100 year old man that had never learned to read because he had not been allowed to go to school due to his race. He taught us about perseverance, determination and resilience and that it is never too late to learn something new. In Maths through Story, we read about Elmer the Elephant and how he learned to embrace and love himself for who he is and helped show us how to do the same.
Year 3: Year 3 used ‘The Colour of Home’ by Mary Hoffman in our Creative Writing session to write our own version of a refugee’s flight. The story follows Hassan and his family, who had to flee war torn Somalia, and leave behind Hassan’s beloved cat Musa. They settle in New York and Hassan explains all his pain through art. In Real Life Maths, we discussed where our families came from, where our parents were born and how we view ourselves. We then created a tally chart and bar chart that reflected the diverse nature of all our ethnicities.
Year 4: This week we have participated in a variety of lessons to coincide with the themes and significance of diversity week. For Creative Writing, we read the story, 'Sulwe' by Lupita Nyong'o, which touched on a variety of themes, including feeling isolated and different, colourism and self-esteem. We wrote our own versions of the story touching on these themes for our writing.
Year 5: Year 5 have celebrated multiculturalism by exploring the themes of segregation and friendship in our Creative Writing illustrated story, ‘The Other Side’, by Jacqueline Woodson. We also analysed the ethnicity breakdown of London according to the 2021 Census and then conducted a census of our own class in Real Life Maths to compare the diversity of our class in comparison to London.
Year 6: We used Granddad Mandela as our Creative Writing book this week. This is written by Nelson Mandela’s daughter and tell the tale of his life and his fight for equality and freedom for the people of South Africa. In Real Life Maths, we looked at the different ethnicities who live in London and then contextualised that to our class to see how diverse our year group is and compared this to the population of London as a whole.
