Welcome to this week’s bulletin…
Pride Assembly
It has been an interesting week ‘behind the scenes’ as unfortunately a right-wing American blogger was made aware of our Pride Assembly on Monday and used this to launch a social-media attack against the school and the headteacher personally. Some of this has been very unpleasant in nature, but we’re doing OK through it.
The details of the Assembly were shared in advance, for openness, on this website last week. The content of the assembly was, as shown in that post, around acceptance of difference and protected characteristics. This is content that the DfE and Ofsted expect us to deliver as part of our work on personal development, an area in which were given an Outstanding grade in our recent inspection. It is in line with the British Values that we are expected by law to promote. This is also content that our Trust would expect us to be delivering in accordance with the Relationships and SRE Charter and wide community consultation conducted previously around Relationships Education.
The content of the Assemblies did not promote a lifestyle, only that is is acceptable to be different – at Key Stage One, the example of Elmer the Elephant was mentioned. The assembly also touched on the fact that some children (including some in our community) may have a mummy and a daddy, others may have just one of those and others may live with two females or two males – that families can look very different and that that is fine. Sexuality or being gay was not discussed, as per the content shared in advance.
We also discussed that it is not allowed to insult people who are different and that our value of kindness should always prevail. We explicitly recognised the right of people to disagree on personal, moral or religious grounds and that this too is a protected human right.
At Key Stage Two, a similar tone was adopted, with the addition of some discussion around the inappropriateness of using ‘gay’ as a derogatory adjective, as happens amongst the children from time to time – there has been a bit of a flurry of this in Year Three recently, for example. Again, this is something that the Ofsted Inspection handbook specifically prescribes that we deal with.
Sadly, the troll used this to libel the headteacher personally and the school in general, also picking up on our anti-racist, anti-Islamophobic stance. It seems he was also triggered by a private tweet from the head’s personal account, in admiration of the victims’ families and calling for love and tolerance in Nottingham in the wake of the recent awful events.
A call was made for the school and head to be reported to the authorities for investigation. Tellingly however, no such report was made, either by the original troll or by anyone who voiced support of his views, suggesting no genuine interest in the children’s wellbeing, only to promote hateful views.
As a precaution and as an act of openness, we have reported these concerns ourselves to the relevant people; our Trust HR and Safeguarding Executives and also the CEO of the Trust.
We, as a school, will continue to promote the Transform Trust values of Kindness, Respect and Equality. We will also promote the so-called British Values of Tolerance of Difference, Respect and Individual Liberty. Our head will continue to exercise his right to freedom of thought and promote these in his personal social media presence and will continue to ‘call-out’ racists, homophobia, Islamophobia, intolerance and division. His personal account, not in his own name and mostly about football, makes no references to school and any political views expressed are solely that; personal and not connected to school. He does not promote party political views in school. When children ask, and they do, he will always give a balanced view – “some people think… other people think…”
The orignal post is still available here: https://parkdale-primary.co.uk/pride-month/
In other news…
We have been continuing our (extended) Community Action Week and this will also continue into next week. Listen out for our children taking over on Radio Nottingham on Tuesday!: https://parkdale-primary.co.uk/community-action-week-update/
Across the school, we marked Windrush Day – details here, for example, of what Y2 got up to: https://parkdale-primary.co.uk/windrush-day-in-y2/
Year Six have been continuing our new, home-made programme of learning about the world of work and managing money, something they’d requested through our School Council: https://parkdale-primary.co.uk/money-matters-project/
Another pointer here to the recent communication re the NEU Strike Days on the 5th and 7th of July: https://parkdale-primary.co.uk/strike-update/
A plug here for Metro Schools, who support us with our Faith assemblies and some events they put on for children: https://parkdale-primary.co.uk/metro-schools-summer-party-saturday-15th-july-10am-12noon/
A leaflet here about the Dales Day of Action, largely about making our local environment that bit nicer, today and tomorrow. Some of our children have been out on the litter-pick mentioned already. This includes some useful contacts for our City residents and is well worth a look: Finlal 48_7_DAY OF ACTION LEAFLET_DALES_2
Open Evening is on the 11th of July- details to follow in due course.
Please note the Sports Day changes outlined in the letter about teh NEU strike Days!
An invitation here to Year 5’s Good Work Assembly: https://parkdale-primary.co.uk/y5-good-work-assembly-invite/
… and similarly to Year Two’s: https://parkdale-primary.co.uk/y2-good-work-assembly-invite/
And also news of a lovely treat day out for Y2:
And a letter re Y1 and Y2 Sports Day: https://parkdale-primary.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Sports-Day-Letter-23-NEW.pdf