BLM & Increasing Diversity In The WA Curriculum- 1 Year On

By Charlotte Nicholas

As many of the WA community will be aware, in the summer of last year we started to take strides towards creating greater diversity and inclusion in our curriculum and this led to the creation of the Black Lives Matter Charter for Teaching and Learning. This was an excellent piece of work, but, as with anything within teaching, there is still more to be done. I have written more about this in my SSAT think piece, if you are interested in reading more you can find it here. I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight some of the brilliant work that is going on in the WA community, outline the next few steps of the journey and give some questions for everyone to take into account when planning and teaching. During the last BLM focus group meeting, each department shared some of the wonderful work going on across the school and highlighted some areas that we will continue to work on. Fantastically, in all departments, a concerted effort is being made to rethink examples being used and to make changes for greater inclusivity. Some of the excellent examples include; texts written by BAME authors in English, BAME STEM role models in Science lessons and challenges to racial undertones within scientific theories. In Maths, examples used are now incorporating currencies from around the world and names from a variety of cultures. In PE there is an excellent display that features athletes from a range of backgrounds as well as greater inclusion of non-white athletes as examples in practicals and in MFL students are taught essential words that are outside of the curriculum but essential to equip students for the wide range of cultures and people they will encounter in their lives.

Please see some inspirational examples from across the WA community: Inclusion of Harriet Tubman in a Spanish lesson:

Ugandan shillings in a Maths assessment: The origins of algebra in Maths: Activities concerning the level of representation in our government in Citizenship:

The study of the British Civil Rights Movement and Apartheid as part of the 20th-century protest movements in History:

Lessons on the Indigenous populations of South America in Geography:

English department being partnered with Pearson as a ‘Lit in Colour Pioneer’ All of the wonderful examples above show that we are well on the way to more diverse representation in our curriculum. At this stage in the journey, we need to ensure that the diversity in our curriculum continues to evolve rather than stagnate. As part of the last BLM focus group meeting we agreed on the following areas to focus on in our journey:

• Diversity in curriculum content
• Celebration of different cultures
• Ensuring that the fantastic work during Black History Month and the Enrichment day are not isolated or one-offs

We will continue to work on the above areas within the focus group and across departments but as a final point I wanted to share some reflection questions that we could be asking ourselves when planning and teaching which I hope can act as food for thought:

- Who is represented in my lesson?

- Whose story is important?

- Which narrative am I teaching? (How might I challenge this?)

- How can I show students that there are multiple narratives and experiences?

- How can I include intersectionality in my lessons?

Please let me know if you have any further thoughts on this, I would be delighted for you to let me know any new inclusive strategies you adopt or suggestions for the journey. Thanks for reading!