Culture Day 2023!

On the 6th March we celebrated our first Culture Day at Redhill School, a day requested by our student body, who feel very deeply about the importance of diversity and celebrating our differences. It was a fantastic day of learning, trying new activities, tasting different types of foods and focusing on the importance of diversity, tolerance and respect for all. Through the day we also raised money for an amazing charity, Children’s Aid, who support children from all countries and beyond all borders.

Each year group had an assembly in the hall, where Mrs Mather presented a thought provoking presentation on culture and diversity at Redhill and the broader societal landscape of Britain, including videos from students and staff in our school community discussing cultural heritage, racism, traditional dress and more. On stage was our Culture Day decorative display of hands made by Redhill students who, in their form time leading up to the day, had cut out paper hands and decorated them with designs and words about their cultural heritage and what it means to them. The piece drew together the creativity and richness of our school community. Year 7 and 8 also had the privilege of an incredible musical performance from our Year 8 pupil Lakiniyah, who sang a traditional Sri Lankan piece, and looked amazing in her traditional dress too! Every year group had the joy of a video performance from our incredible Staff Bhangra Group too! Thank you to the girls from various year groups who have given up time after school to teach our lovely enthusiastic staff a fabulous Bhangra routine, we hope you enjoyed the performance! Follow up activities to the assemblies included a Welsh lesson from Mr Clayton and discussion topics to encourage students to listen and learn from each other about their experiences and differences around culture and diversity. Lesson’s through the day also included culture themed activities related to subject areas. Students drew Islamic geometry in Maths, while in Science students made informative posters about diversity in the science world.

Certificate awarded to Redhill By Children’s Aid

Culture Day was made special by all the students who met multiple times a week through the past couple of terms, to prepare the vision for the day, and organise and provide activities for the whole school community. Including in particular the Year 9 and 10 Girls who worked on displays around school, including a map outside the main hall with pin points to all the countries around the world that Redhill students have a connection to. They also took part in sharing their thoughts on personal and challenging topics for our videos to share in assemblies, amazing work!

By far the highlight of the day was our International Marketplace, which took place at break and lunch times and consisted of a gym full of stalls from around the world ran by our students and some of our parents who kindly visited! The atmosphere was incredible, as students shared in activities such as face painting, hair braiding, henna, writing in Korean and of course tried a huge range of cultural foods! We had pancakes, samosas, pot noodles, fortune cookies, polish sweets and loads more! All stalls raised money for Children’s Aid. We also had Samba Beat and African drums to try in B block at break time, while the library had a range of authors and books on display from different countries too.

Mrs George’s Creative Writing Club share their thoughts on culture and diversity!

Our Cultural Ambassadors speak on equality and racism.