Barlow Hall’s Belonging Project:
In September, our school, along with Brookburn Primary School, began to work on our Belonging Project. The aims of the joint project were to:
- build knowledge and awareness in pupils of the protected characteristics and the Equality Act
- develop pupils’ sense of belonging within their lives (class, school, community, world)
- raise pupils’ awareness of their own individual identity and how this might be similar to or differ from the identity of others, linked to the protected characteristics.
During the Autumn term, our children have been exploring their sense of belonging and identity through a series of projects and activities. Some of these have been class-based, and some have been school-wide.
Children have participated in whole school assemblies to learn about the protected characteristics, and have continued to explore these through our Rights Respecting work and our Article of the Week sessions. Classes also participated in a day of action on Friday 18th October, in support of Show Racism the Red Card.
Some of our class-based projects have included our Year 1 children exploring homes and how these might look different for different families. They created a piece of work linked to people that live in their house with them. When depicting the different houses, we wanted these to visually represent other differences there may be in houses, such as materials. This was particularly important for pupils who had newly arrived to the UK, and the class also explored how windows, doors and the roof of a house may look different in different parts of the world. The children could then use this knowledge to design their own house for their families.
Our Year 6 children have been exploring the work of the artist Alice Kettle and with artist in residence, Claire Law, have been looking at soft-power and learning to read symbolism and significance in portraits and promoting acceptance and inclusivity across our school community in our power portraits.
The Belonging Project continues through this next term, with a focus on gender as a protected characteristic linked to International Women’s Day, and a focus on disability as a protected characteristic through a Disability Awareness Day with Manchester City in the Community.
