Seely Primary and Nursery School

In June 2020, 19 staff members formed an anti-racism working group. The aims of this group were:

• To ensure all children attending Seely become accepting and respectful of different ethnicities, cultures and religions
• That Seely children have the opportunity to see themselves and their culture reflected around the school environment and in the lessons taught

Since June 2020, the following things have happened:

• A parent questionnaire was sent out and 75 parents responded. Feedback from this group has been invaluable and some of these parents have asked to be kept informed of the school’s progression towards the aims via email.
• Assemblies in the autumn term focussed on sharing new diversity books for the younger children. The children in Key Stage 2 learned about the British Empire, British colonies and their contribution to World War 2. The children also learned about the struggle of people who wanted to remain in Britain after the war but were treated unfairly because of the colour of their skin.
• Friends of Seely have given the school £500 and this has been spent on 73 new fiction books to reflect the diverse families that attend Seely.
• Mr Gyekye and other members of the school and wider community have taken part in a ‘Better Books’ film that has been circulated throughout Nottingham City. You can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/drunXH1EBO4 (or search YouTube for #NCBetterBooks) The message in this video is very important and very clear, “If you don’t see it, you cannot be it.” It is our role to show children in their environment, their resources and their role models that they CAN achieve anything they set their mind to and that people who look just like them, with the same backgrounds they have, have done just that. We will be looking at fundraising opportunities in the summer term to raise money to improve our diversity resources even further.
• This week is science week and we are having a focus on diversity in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

o   Children in F2 are learning about Maggie Aderin-Pocock and Dorothy Vaughan

o   Children in years 1 and 2 are learning about Dr Mae Jemison, Tu Youyou, Dr Percy Lavon Julian, Sir Charles Kao, Dr Kusala Rajendran, Dr Shinya Yamanaka and Dr Rosalind Franklin

o   Children in years 3 and 4 are learning about the same scientists as years 1 and 2 but also studying the work of Seismologist, Dr Kusala Rajendran in detail as it links to their topic on earthquakes

o   Children in years 5 and 6 are learning about the same scientists as years 1-4 but they are also studying the work of Dr Esther Odekunle, a neurobiologist and antibody engineer

o   As part of diversity in science week and linked to International Women’s Day, the older children have been learning about female scientists in the past who were denied the Nobel Prize because of their gender

• One member of staff has attended a ‘Black Pupils Matter’ training event and will be sharing the training with Seely staff during a session in the summer term.
• Two members of staff are attending training run by Nottingham University on Nottingham’s links to the Transatlantic slave trade. Information and resources will be shared across the school.
• Next steps:

o   Assemblies leading up to the Easter holidays will focus on diversity in science, Comic Relief, religious festivals and role models such as Vanessa Mae, Frank Soo and Malala Yousafzai.

o   We are hoping the summer Olympic Games in Tokyo will be going ahead in 2021 and our focus for assemblies will therefore be the struggle for equality in sport. Children will be taught (at an age appropriate level) about the attitudes towards black and Jewish athletes during the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin, the experiences of athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos in the 1968 Olympics.

o   We will also look at the experiences of other people working in areas of sport such as Jawahar Roble, the UK’s first female Muslim referee.

o   We will be teaching the children about the following religious festivals and how they are celebrated:

• The Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr and the month of Ramadan that precedes it
• The Christian festival of Easter
• The Hundu festival of Holi
• The Sikh festival of Vaisakhi
• The Jewish festival of Pesach (Passover)
• The Buddhist festival of Wesak

o   We hope that during the summer term and definitely next academic year we can continue with the other exciting events that we had started to have in school such as the Language Cafes, the trips to religious places of worship and having role models in school that reflect the children’s backgrounds.

Please take the time to talk to your child about what they have been learning about in school so we are all working together to create a community of accepting and respectful young people.

Thank you