Miss Patterson

The last few weeks have seen our students and staff take part in a variety of activities around the school to absorb the stories of Black women in particular during Black History Month. As well as assemblies for each year group discussing the theme of ‘Saluting our Sisters’, our students were invited to taste foods from the African-Caribbean cuisine while watching a thought-provoking TV series discussing themes including identity, class and growing up as an African-American. On one of the lunchtimes, with the help of Miss Hammond and Mr Blankson-Hemans, our student helpers serve traditionally-cooked African plantain with various topping options for the students to sample while discussing the themes raised in the viewing.

The Art department held an activity where they used inspiration from West African Adrinka symbols painted onto our seating under the canopy in the courtyard. These symbols are visual representations of proverbs with significant historical and philosophical meanings representing qualities such as hard work, unity in diversity, friendship and high standards. These are all qualities as a school that we aim at strenghtening within ourselves and tie in perfectly with the KWS values. Attached are pictures showing the art leaders hard at work.

As well as this, the Library held a “Listening Party” one lunchtime to over 50 students who went through a musical journey looking at the contributions by Black artists towards the British music scene and how music changed on the British landscape with these contributions based on happenings within politics and much more – this was an eye-opening event for me personally as I often hear these songs not knowing the landscape in which they rose from and the challenges attached to them.

The History department held a House competition to all students where they chose which minoritised ethnic group figure in History they would like to learn about. The  runners up with 50 house points were: Isabelle S 7A, Shona E 9F and Shakhram S 11K. The winner with 100 house points was Florence C 9K. Well done, all!

It’s been a pleasure organising my first Black History Month at KWS and it has been a learning opportunity for myself and students, specifically when it comes to the contributions made across the fields of Business, Engineering, the Arts and politics by Black women to create a more cultivated society for us all. With the school’s focus currently on Remembrance Day, I am preparing for our Diwali Celebrations next week which I look forward to sharing with everyone.

Miss Annie

KWS Transition and EDI Lead

¡Hola!

In Spain, we took part in a series of activities to help improve and add to our Spanish vocabulary set. On the first day, we arrived in Águilas very late at night, had dinner and went to our dorm rooms.

On the second and third day, we took part in watersports, including paddle boarding, big surf, scuba diving and kayaking. On the third day we also did some Spanish dancing as well as learning how to cook bolitas, a Spanish sweet dish of potato covered in chocolate. The entire recipe was in Spanish! On the 4th day, we went to the Spanish city of Cartagena, a Spanish roman city. There we had the opportunity to buy some souvenirs in the market, as well as being given the opportunity to explore las calles de Cartagena (the streets of Cartagena).

We also went to a museum with the first ever submarine! On the 5th day, we stayed local and went to the centre of the town we were staying in, Águilas, one of the last Arab cities in Spain. We climbed up the largest hill in the town up to the castle, overlooking the town and the sea. What incredible views! We also had the opportunity to explore las calles de Águilas (the streets of Águilas), to buy some more souvenirs if we wanted to.

On the last day, we had a photo race, in which we had to go around the area surrounding our hostel, take pictures of certain monuments or certain poses, and race back to the monitores. The checklist was in Spanish. After this we took one last trip to the beach, packed our belongings and said goodbye to the monitores, and drove back to Alicante-Elche airport to fly back home.

In my opinion, the trip was definitely worthwhile for Spanish as we were given opportunities to speak Spanish everywhere we went, from the town centres to within the hostels. As well as this the monitores and teachers also assisted us at every turn when we wanted to know a particular phrase in Spanish or just a general fact about Spain!

Syan B (Yr8 Language Ambassador)