School Diversity Week - 21st to 25th June 2021

Each year thousands of schools take part in School Diversity Week. A national charity 'Just like Us' created the week to celebrate LGBTQ+ families in schools. We love taking part in this week as it is a fantastic way to ensure that our school is a safe, happy and welcoming place for everyone, no matter who they are. At Balshaw's, we like to celebrate all types of diversity, so that is exactly what we did! Each day had a theme and each morning students and staff watched different presentations in tutor about the theme. You can see the details below:

• Monday - The launch and assembly on our Balshaw's diverse community; Windrush Day (Tuesday) being celebrated in Years 7,8 and 9 History lessons, throughout the week
• Tuesday - Religion and presentation, by our Chaplain, Luke
• Wednesday - Disability and presentation by Mrs Rogerson
• Thursday - Customs, Cultures and Traditions and presentation by Miss Brown, awesome music by Mrs Atkinson - Brown and film suggestions by Mrs Bache
• Friday - LGBTQ+ and presentation by Ms McCutcheon and 'Rainbow Friday', where staff wear a colour of the rainbow to represent the Pride flag

LIBRARY NEWSLETTER

Along with all the planned events, students received a Library newsletter with details about a selection of books celebrating and exploring our many diversities. With fiction books starring LGBTQ+, neurodiverse, gender fluid, neutral and trans characters as well as others exploring racial diversity and discrimination and non-fiction books providing self-help (Shelf-Help!).

COMPETITION!

We always love a good competition and we had a real corker for staff and students to take part in this year. We wanted to create a recipe book, showing all the wonderful cultures our staff and students are part of. The book will be bound and available from the Library very soon.

MIXED ROUNDERS

Thank you to our year 10 students who took part in the mixed rounders game after school to celebrate School Diversity Week. It was a really great atmosphere and the students gave up their own time to do this.

GORGEOUS JEWELLERY

A huge thank you to Mrs Hayes for making gorgeous jewellery, for staff to buy, in support of School Diversity Week. £25 has been raised so far and the money will be donated to the Just Like Us charity - you can read more about the charity here.

RAINBOW FRIDAY

For Rainbow Friday, staff wore colourful clothing representing the colours of the rainbow and the Pride flag.

Here are a few of our amazing staff who took part:

DISPLAYS IN SCHOOL

We are proactive in supporting Diversity in our school and our noticeboard is a daily reminder of this along with other posters in key locations in the building.