Black History Month 2023

Over the last two weeks children have been celebrating Black History month across the curriculum.

Last Friday I led assembly with a focus on Dr Martin Luther King and celebrated his life, his achievements and the legacy he has left on the entire world with regards to freedoms, peace and civil liberties – all of which we enjoy in England. I paid particular attention to his quote, ‘I have a dream that my for children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but the content of their character.

’ We honed in on the phrase: ‘content of character’ and discussed what this meant, and how our own Raglan Character Virtues help to build ‘content of character.’ My hope is that the children left assembly feeling inspired by the story of Dr King, and the legacies he left us all with.

• Children in Year 6 have been painting murals of influential black people and learning about their legacies.
• In science in Year 5, children will be researching famous black physicists, (past and present), for home learning which is a follow on from learning they have completed about Maggie Aderin-Pocock.
• In Year 4 children have been learning about the black author Sulwe by Lupita Nyong’o. This is a story of self-discovery and really made the children think about self-identity.
• In Year 3 children have been learning about Mae Jemison who was the first Black female astronaut and her journey.
• In Year 2 children have been looking at Florence Price and the styles and influences of other artists such as Little Richard, Bobby McFerrin and Bob Marley.
• In Year 1 children have been exploring black inventors, designing spaceships inspired by Mae Jemison, and making African jewellery.

All of Key Stage 1 have been singing traditional African songs such as Oleo and Obwa Si Mi (and played a traditional African ‘passing to the best’ game to the latter).

Frogs have been creating pieces of art inspired by Kente cloth. It is a Ghanaian textile, made of handwoven cloth, strips of silk and cotton. They have also listened to their very own BHM playlist while working, listening to tunes from the likes of ACM Gospel Choir, Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, The Skatalites and Estelle.

The children in Reception have been reading the story Handa’s surprise and visited the continent Africa and have been learning about Handa’s home country Kenya. We focused on dance as part of our PE lessons for this half-term and learned how to work with others to move to a beat and follow a movement pattern with a partner in time with the music. We learned about the ‘Kye Kye Kule’, an African call-back song where we had to move our bodies to the different words. As part of Black History Month we dressed up in African clothing, necklaces and head bands to perform.