I am always delighted to take my inspiration for these articles from the children themselves. The week started in a splendid manner with 5W giving yet another performance in front of an audience, following last week’s triumphant Shakespeare at The Old Market and again in the Hall. Their theme this time was themselves, looking at the heritage represented in their class. They have some incredibly diverse and interesting family backgrounds, and they told us lots of interesting facts about the countries that they have links to. Inspired by this, we are undertaking a survey of the whole of the school!
With the results we have so far, we have thirty different languages spoken at home or in the wider family, with fewer than half of the children saying that English is their sole language. We have representatives of seven different religious faiths, observing a wide variety of celebrations throughout the year. In line with Brighton and Hove’s census status as the most secular city in the UK, we also have around 50% of our children who say religion is not part of their experience in their immediate family.
Around three quarters of our children were born in the UK, but that figure falls to around half who said that both their parents were born in the UK. Around a quarter of our children said that all four grandparents were born overseas. We have extended families in every single continent on Planet Earth bar Antarctica!
As a control experiment, we asked the same questions of our staff, who vary from being merely a decade to sixty years older than the children. Whilst diversity amongst the staff does not equal that of the children, we have links with New Zealand, South Africa, Norway, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Holland, France, and of course the USA on my part. Eight languages are spoken outside school by the staff to their families around the world. Our society is becoming more and more multicultural over time, and rapidly so.
What is clear is that the St Christopher’s generation who will become adults in the 2030s are an incredibly diverse group of people, and that growing up in our school community and the city beyond is hugely beneficial to them. We are not all the same, but we are all equal, and seeing differences in those around you every day reinforces that at every stage. The more we understand different cultures, languages, and customs, the more the barriers between them are removed.
Ms Elizabeth Lyle, Head