The newly updated teaching pack has been created by the Council’s School Improvement Service to support schools as they educate their pupils about community cohesion.
Councillor Rupert Simmons, the County Council’s Lead Member for Learning and School Effectiveness said: “All schools, whatever the range of pupils they serve, are responsible for equipping those pupils to live and thrive alongside people from many different backgrounds and learn to respect their cultures.
“For some schools, with diverse populations, existing activities will already be contributing towards community cohesion. For other schools, where the pupil population is less diverse, more will need to be done to provide opportunities for interaction between children and young people from different backgrounds.”
Nationally schools have a new duty to promote community cohesion and they will be inspected on this duty from September 2008.
Significantly updated on previous guidance the new Cultural Diversity resource for schools aims to help children reflect on and discuss differences and similarities in ways which will help them identify what unites us as well as what makes us different from each other.
It includes some staff development activities to examine the issues around cultural diversity and then specific units and lesson guidance tailored at different age groups in the primary school age. These examine issues such as identity, community links, celebrations, me and my family, the global community, stereotypes and prejudices. Crucially it focuses on exploring our common sense of belonging.
Two free training events for schools have been held by the County Council’s School Improvement Service to launch the new resource.
Councillor Simmons added: “We hope that such knowledge, skills and understanding will help prepare children and young people to make informed decisions about playing an active role in their school, the wider community and hopefully later in life, also the global community.”
Reference:
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