Holly Park is a diverse school. Our school is made up of children from every religion and those without a religion. We have children from many different ethnic backgrounds and children who speak very many different languages. We have children from different socio-economic backgrounds. Our staff and governors are also diverse.
At our school, we want everyone with different backgrounds, beliefs or personal characteristics to be treated with respect
We are committed to building an ethos of Diversity and Inclusion.
Atia Rafiq is our governor for diversity.
At Holly Park:
- 77% of pupils are from minority ethnic backgrounds
- 59% have a first language other than English – well above national average (49%).
- 50% have English as an additional language – Well above the average (20%)
- The school has 15 out of 17 possible ethnic backgrounds with the largest groups being: 32% white other background, 24% white British, 7% mixed, 6% Asian/Indian.
At Holly Park, diversity means acknowledging that there are differences between people that should be recognised, respected and celebrated. We promote respect of each other’s differences and identities. We celebrate and raise awareness of diversity in the school and believe that teaching children about diversity prepares them for life in modern Britain.
We actively promote self-worth through our PSHE curriculum, celebration assemblies, talk times, rewards and our house system.
We value all of our community:
- Whether or not they are disabled
- Whatever their ethnicity, culture, national origin or national status
- Whatever their gender or gender identity
- Whatever their religious or non-religious affiliation or faith background
- Whatever their sexual identity
We celebrate a wide range of festivals and celebrations through our RE curriculum but also through assemblies.
We celebrate Black History Month every year.
We have celebrated disability through our Equality Day.
Diversity is woven carefully throughout our curriculum so that it is not an addition and so that the curriculum represents the cultures that our children are from. This is planned out so that it does not happen by accident. We look at a range of people throughout history, a variety of scientists, a range of authors and a variety of artists both male and female from other cultures.
We have worked hard to ensure that the reading books on offer at our school are diverse and represent our children and their families. We have increased the books we have – with a focus on different religions, different types of families and books with people from different ethnicities.
Our commitment to Diversity and raising awareness of the vibrancy of our community is always ongoing
Cultural Day
As part of our work on Personal Development we held a Cultural Day.
We explained to children what cultural heritage is. We encouraged children to come to school dressed in clothes that represent their cultural heritage, wearing flags from their cultural heritage or colours of the flags. The children and adults looked amazing.
Children from Year 1 to Year 6 put together a box containing items that represent their own cultural heritage. These included: flags, religious artefacts, recipes, a photo, food items, clothing etc. Such a great effort was made.
The point of the day was to value the backgrounds of all of our children, to celebrate the diversity of our community and for children to get to know more about their class mates and their backgrounds. Knowing their cultural heritage can build children’s confidence and give them a sense of belonging. It was a wonderful day which the children really enjoyed. It was marvellous for everybody to get to know each other better, to understand and to show RESPECT for each other.
What a lot of different cultures are present within our school community. There is so much diversity here. It was wonderful to be able to celebrate this and for everyone to feel celebrated.
Cultural Heritage Display
To complete our Cultural Heritage Day, all of the art work was mounted on to class tiles by our teaching assistants and Mr Mock and Miss Richardson have displayed them all together beautifully as one montage in the school hall. It looks wonderful to see this celebrated and to value every child.
