14th October 2022
HEADLINES
By Mrs A Bansropun
Associate Assistant Headteacher WHY BLACK HISTORY MONTH MATTERS Throughout October, schools, workplaces and institutions across the country are celebrating Black History Month. Black History Month is a wonderful opportunity for us all to be part of the national celebrations and events which honour the too-often unheralded accomplishments of Black Britons in every area of endeavour throughout our history. Of course, this should not just happen in one month of the calendar year; the voices of those from the Black community should be amplified and listened to whenever and wherever possible and this is something that we have been aiming to accomplish throughout our curricula. However, it is not always easy… Did you know that out of the 38 set texts a school can pick to study at GCSE (for English Literature) only 3 of them are written by either a Black or Asian writer? Every single other novel, play or poem (all 35) are written by white people. When you take the statistics further, that equates to 7.8% of the texts we are allowed to pick from written by writers who identify as Black or Asian. This statistic is in no way representative of Britain - in the last Census that took place (2021), 13% of Britain’s population identified as belonging to a Black, Asian, Mixed or Other ethnic group. It is clear that at GCSE level we find ourselves between a rock and a hard place when it comes to teaching our youngsters about the histories, experiences and accomplishments of individuals from diverse backgrounds. But where there is a will, there is a way…
About 5 years ago, the English team redesigned their Key Stage 3 curriculum to tackle this issue head-on. We wanted to diversify our curriculum in every way we possibly could and so we got to work on choosing texts that are written by authors who were Black, Asian, Mixed or Other. For example, in Cohort 7, we start the year by reading ‘Refugee Boy’ by Benjamin Zephaniah (a novelist and poet who has been named one of the greatest post war writers by The Times Newspaper); in Cohort 8, learners study ‘Noughts and Crosses’ written by multi-award winning Malorie Blackman OBE who was Britain’s Children’s Laureate. We also teach a unit of study entitled ‘Poetry from Other Cultures’ which features poems written by Imtiaz Dharker, Maya Angelou and Chinua Achebe. The conversations and subsequent learning that takes place when learners study these texts is what I believe constitutes a ‘real education’. Learners have the opportunity to develop empathy and understanding regarding the struggles that they have potentially never had to face themselves this is the wonder of literature; we can explore the experiences and journeys of those whom we don’t even know and it can teach us how best to live our own lives. Of course English is not the only subject in the school reworking their curriculum to include the voices of Black, Asian, Mixed or Other individuals. If you speak with your child, I am sure they will tell you about learning about Rosa Parks and Muhammed Ali in Drama; about the Civil Rights Movement in History; about the study of African masks in Art, and about the 7 world religions in Religious Studies.