Black History Month Learning & Celebrations

October was Black History Month and here at Borough it has been encouraging to see all of our students taking part in celebrating, exploring and studying black history and culture across the curriculum. In addition, to see their preparations for a performance.

In Music, students have been playing in African drumming circles music from Mali, singing songs from Ghana and Nigeria and dancing the South African Gumboot Dance. In Drama they have been looking at the rich history of storytelling and the Griots, whose role it was to pass on the stories and histories from one generation to another. The Art department is looking at African textile design and dyes as well as asking all students to contribute a piece of artwork about their chosen black history hero or heroine. The Humanities departments have challenged the students to conduct a research project on the history, geography, religions, storytellers and philosophers from the ancient kingdoms of Africa to the present day. Also, in French, students are looking at songs from Mali.

We have been working in partnership with the Africa Centre, which is around the corner from our school. They will be sending artists, musicians, poets and storytellers into our school over the coming few weeks to work with our students, share their stories and celebrate together the culture and history of Africa. This will be an ongoing partnership, which will certainly go way beyond Black History Month- we are looking forward to future collaborations with the Africa Centre.

We have produced a short film to share our journey with our wider school community, please do take a look!