Planning a diversity/cultural week

[petitdonkey]

Has anyone planned a week in school to celebrate differences? We had originally planned to call it ‘diversity week’ with the idea that we could incorporate many different themes but when I google it, it seems that term is specifically used by ‘just like us’ to celebrate the LGBT+ community. Would it be offensive to still use the term but include cultural, religious, neurodiversity etc? Too much for one week?

im very much in the ‘blank page’ stages of planning so I would love to knock ideas around if you have any ideas at all.

I’d just caution you to be very careful not to hang ‘diversity’ on any cultural stereotypes, especially around dress, diet, religion or customs. It can go the wrong way and make individual children feel very othered.

I did this at school, and it was really well received
we had a big push on “celebrating ourselves” and that encompassed race, ethnicity, religion, lgbt, disability, neurodiversity etc

if you have staff or pupils willing to talk about themselves it works really well, we had a teacher who did a talk on Afro hair, another did a cooking class to make their mum’s curry, a pupil spoke to other pupils about what it was like to have dyspraxia and do PE in school. we also had a big display of a map that people could add a bio of themselves and draw lines to important countries (e.g. a pupil might draw a line to both England and also Hong Kong to describe their family)

definitely worth doing if, as was pointed out above, you can plan it carefully to avoid stereotypes and make it relevant to your community

‘Celebrating ourselves’ is a great title, thank you @Littlepinkstarsbyradish .
I am very cautious @BadGranny about causing offense through stereotyping. We have a pupil body that is diverse in terms of race and religion, lgbt families and many neurodiverse children but our staff is 100% white, largely female and, to the best of my knowledge, Christian or non practicing.

the vast majority of our children are British but there is a beautiful number of cultures behind them (Is that the right way to express it?!)

I want celebration of diversity to be at the heart of what we do but don’t want to be clunky and get it wrong.

thanks both for contributing- I definitely think I’ll use that title.

Community might encapsulate all.

Thank you @TortolaParadise - I was thinking of a something week (we have arts week, stem week etc) so ‘Community Week- celebrating ourselves’ could work.

i was going to go with ‘diversity week’ but, as mentioned in my op, that seems to be very specific now.

We did this in June in my school. It was called International Week and linked MFL, RE and Geography with food and native dress up.

Went down a storm, but then we have a very diverse school community, so that obviously helps 😉

They did something similar a few years ago at our school (remote due to covid).
They called it "this is me " as a take on the greatest showman .

Thanks all - any suggestions for activities would be very gladly recieved!
So far I am thinking that each year group could have a different book in English - there are some great ones on 'Books for Topics'.

Maybe we then make up a whole school 'celebrate me' display... could include a map, photos of family, religion etc..
I can ask if any parents will come in and share food or experiences

thanks for letting me knock ideas about!

We had parents come in to talk about their home countries/languages. All KS2 teachers had to teach MFL on the same day. One mufti day of native dress up. Parents bring in food from around the world. School dinner menu changes to match each year group learning about a specific continent/country. Welcome assembly to introduce the week. Ordered in chopsticks and maracas for the children to use. You could also get castanets. We took photos of everything and put them in the newsletter.

My dd school call it 'culture week' and a sixth form committee lead it and suggest activities based on their personal knowledge/background/traditions.