October is Black History Month and at St Matthias we regard this as an important part of the school year. This year students have been focusing on heroes of the past, present and the future and have been taking part in activities during tutor time each day to help to raise their awareness. Curriculum subjects have also got involved for example:
Students have been cooking Caribbean dishes in food lessons
Students have been learning about Othello in English. They identified how others call Othello negative names despite his military excellence and respect from those in charge and compared it to how the media presents the BLM movement in a negative light too. Students discussed how we may know that this is actually a positive movement and how we are all affected by it.
In History students have been exploring the impact of the transatlantic slave trade whilst in Geography students explored the island of Haiti and how it was the scene of the Haitian revolution in 1791 where self liberated slaves overthrew colonial rule.
Everyone has got involved in some way to help make this time a great success!