Throughout the month of October each year, we include learning about Black History through our assemblies, PSHE lessons and other areas of the curriculum. Whole school assemblies focus on a variety of inspirational black people from different walks of life such as athletes, scientists and authors. Children have also enjoyed books such as ‘Freedom in Congo Square’ by Carole Boston Weatherford and ‘Mixed’ by Arree Chung in our reading assemblies.

In classes, teachers choose to promote Black History Month in different ways according to the ages of the children and other areas of curriculum learning. Here are some examples of how Black History Month has been celebrated previously:

Years 5 and 6

Our oldest children in Years 5 and 6 have used whole class reading lessons as an opportunity to read and discuss a variety of texts with a link to Black History such as ‘Caged Bird’ by Maya Angelou, the lyrics of the song ‘Change is Gonna Come’ by Sam Cooke and a text about the life of Rosa Parks. They have also had class discussions prompted by assemblies and class lessons where the children have learned about discrimination and injustice as well as being inspired by the contributions to our lives made by black people in history. It was as a result of discussions during Black History Month in 2020 that our year 5 and 6 children suggested we make changes to the names of our school Houses as they felt they did not reflect our diverse society - this is how we came to have our current Houses of Sir David Attenborough, Marcus Rashford, Emma Watson and Malala Yousafzai.

Years 3 and 4

In Years 3 and 4, the children have learned about a number of black people from history and also from the modern day. Teachers used video resources as well as different texts to enable the children to find out about Rosa Parks. The children were shocked to find out how black people were treated in the past and outraged by the society lived in by Rosa Parks. They created mindmaps of information about her life and also spent time finding out about the lives of other black people. They also developed their drawing skills by creating portraits of inspirational black people. 

Years 1 and 2

In Key Stage One, children enjoyed watching Horrible Histories video clips that talked about a number of black people and the bravery they showed. This linked to PSHE learning on the theme of ‘Be Bold, Be Brave’ and children were able to make links between the bravery shown by people on the video and times they had been brave in their own lives. They also talked about the stories and people represented in assemblies, enabling children to share their own thoughts and comment on the experiences of others.