Harlow Green is a school community that embraces diversity with an understanding that our differences should be celebrated as they make us who we are with each and everyone one of us being special on our own way.
Although we do lots of work within the curriculum and during assemblies to support understanding of diversity, continually being able to reflect on ourselves and our empathy for others is essential for our continued growth to be successful in modern society.
With that in mind, we had the pleasure of a visit from Andrew Moffat from ‘No Outsiders’, which is a charity that has created a programme for children to learn about the importance of equality for all.
Over the day, Andrew visited every year group and, using a range of simple photographs and picture books, showed how children can be given the opportunity to think about and question what it means to be treated equally.
A good example of Andrew’s work was in the session with Year 5 who were shown a photograph of a Viking helmet and told about the discovery of an important Viking Leader. It was explained to the children that the story hit the press in a big way when something unexpected had been unearthed. After describing a Viking leader’s strength, weapons, and beard, the children were just as surprised as the press had been to hear that this particular Viking Leader had been a woman. But why should this be a surprise? This led to a lot of talk about gender stereotypes and how these can still be applied happen today.
There are lots of reasons why people are different from one another but the aim of the programme is to ensure that within a school community nobody sees this as a reason not to feel part of the community – everyone is welcome and cared for as there are no outsiders. This fits perfectly with our school’s vision of growing happy, healthy and successful, together.
