Shrewsbury Academy celebrates diversity with week of celebrations
Students and staff from Shrewsbury Academy have taken part in a week-long event to celebrate its diverse school community.
School Diversity Week is a national event celebrated every year towards the end of June, allowing young people accross the country to show their support for LGBT+ equality. The cause is a chance to learn more about diversity and understand that no one should face discrimination. It is an important topic as life can still be really difficult for LGBT+ people around the world.
To educate on this important topic, the students at Shrewsbury Academy took part in a number of informative assemblies through the course of the week, these discussed key topics such as: Definitions and Pronouns; LGBT phobia and LGBTQ+ role models. The school’s Dance Studio was turned into a drop-in area during breaktimes, a safe place, where the students were encouraged to go and get support, ask any questions they may have had and meet members of the school’s LGBTQ+ community.
The awareness week concluded with ‘Rainbow Friday’ - a special day where staff and students were encouraged to wear rainbow accessories to school.
Head of School, Miss Johnson had a cake especially commissioned for the school’s cake sale from local business Cake Junky Shropshire. The spectacular centre piece, filled with six layers of colourful sponges with a surprise Skittles core was a huge hit with students. The school raised over £240 on their Rainbow Friday, with the money accumulated going towards the AKT Community, a great charity which supports LGBTQ+ young people aged 16-25 in the UK who are facing or experiencing homelessness or living in a hostile environment.
The event organised by Shrewsbury Academy staff; Miss Frederick, Mrs Howells, Mrs Powell and Mr Jordan was a great success, with a lot of positive feedback from students and staff across the school. Year 10 student Ashton Evans, said; “I feel like our school is a really accepting place.” With fellow peer Maddison Burton, commenting; “It’s been a great week, I’ve loved celebrating all things LGBTQ+.”
Shrewsbury Academy is working hard towards achieving Rainbow Award Accreditation and hopes in the coming year that they will be leading the way for their work on diversity and inclusion.
