Blog 11, Mrs Tasker, 10 Feb 2017

On 9th February our school celebrated ‘PRIDE Day’. The slogan from our PRIDE Awareness Week is “take pride in yourself”. How fitting for our work in schools. 

The event in school included colourful celebrations (students and staff wearing brightly coloured tops, music in the hall at lunchtime) and thought-provoking information (stalls in the hall at lunchtime to raise awareness of issues linked to gender and sexuality). All these endeavours have been complemented by work in PSHCEE lessons. 

Our LGBT group and the brilliant Ms Richards orchestrated the whole event but many staff and students got involved, for example making cakes to sell and manning the stalls. We were also overwhelmed by just how many organisations were keen to give up their time and join us. The school hall was packed through-out lunchtime as students picked up leaflets and chatted to the various organisations, ate cakes, bought rainbow merchandise and stopped to hear the fabulous ‘Out Aloud’ singing group. When lunchtime was over I went around the room thanking all the groups who had joined us. They were all so complimentary about our students and two separate individuals commented on how different their school days would have been if there had been such warm and positive events like this in their schools. 

PRIDE Day is so important to our community because it is all about diversity and inclusion. Such commitment to openness and tolerance have never seemed so important in schools and beyond….