On a bright, sunny day in June 2018, Crab Lane had another colourful, dazzling Rainbow Day, to celebrate the LGBT community and equality for all. To begin the day, we gathered in the hall dressed in the colours of the LGBT flag and had a whole school assembly, led by Rob Partington (Head teacher from New Moston Primary School, and a Stonewall Trainer). This helped start the day off perfectly, as it delivered the key message of, it does not matter what your background is, what your life choices are or what beliefs you have, you can be a successful individual.
When assembly finished, all children moved to their respective classrooms, so they could take part in the exciting Rainbow Day activities that had been planned and organised by our super class teachers and teaching assistants. We felt very honoured that some of our parents and carers were able to join us in our classes and take part in the day too. We at Crab Lane are sure that you will agree that after seeing all the positive feedback and work our children produced, our second consecutive year of celebrating and respecting all of our individual qualities was a complete success. We look forward to next year’s celebration in June.
Year 1
On Rainbow Day, Year 1 all wore violet to represent SPIRIT! Spirit is the courage and resilience that helps people to survive in difficult times and to keep their way of life and their beliefs.
We read the story ‘And Tango Makes Three’ and talked about what makes a good family.
The baby penguin in the story was well looked after by Roy and Silo. We are all so lucky that we have someone who looks after us!
We all drew members of our family and wrote a sentence about what we loved about them. Have a look at our fantastic work!
Year 2
On Rainbow Day, Year 2C discussed what all parents/caregivers need to do in order to take care of a baby. We then read the story: 'And Tango Makes Three'. In the story, Tango has two daddies and they make sure that Tango is cared for.
We discussed differences and similarities between our families and found that families are all unique. As long as our families care for us, we should always be respectful and tolerant towards differences in families. We then created some beautiful stain glass windows to show who cares for us and why we love them!
In Year 2L, we spent the morning exploring different families and we identified how special and unique each one is. The children and adults had the opportunity to talk to each other about their loved ones and we all took part in an art lesson where we shared pictures of our families in a stain glass window. We learnt that love is what creates happiness in our homes and hearts.
Year 3
Year 3L read the story 'The Other Ark' and discussed how all the animals in the story were really different. The children then created their own unique animals! They were so colourful and not like any animals anyone had seen before. It didn't matter how different the animals looked because they were all welcome at Crab Lane.
During Rainbow Day in Year 3C, we read ‘The Other Ark’. It was about some very strange animals that looked very different to any animals we had ever seen before. It didn’t matter how different the animals looked - they were all welcome on the ark. We then created our own very different looking creatures and we could make them as peculiar as we liked. It didn’t matter because they were all welcome in 3C!
We also designed some t-shirt designs and entered the rainbow day t-shirt competition.
Year 4
In Class 4L, on Rainbow day we started off by talking about what it means to be lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans. The children were then given some different scenarios about children who felt that they were in an uncomfortable situation.
e.g. Alicia and Jacob are playing dress up in the Home Corner. Jacob chooses a dress to wear but Alleasha says boys can’t wear dresses. How can you help Jacob?
The children discussed how they could help Jacob. They said it was important to support Jacob in his decision to wear a dress. They also mentioned that they should tell an adult about Alleasha's opinions and inform her that everybody has the right to dress how they choose to.
After the work on scenarios, we completed the t-shirt competition. There were some fabulous designs!
Some of our key quotes from the day were:
'Treat others how you wish to be treated.'
'Don't treat anybody differently because of their choices.'
'Give everybody the same level of respect.'
In Year 4C, on Rainbow Day, we started by talking about different types of love that we feel. We thought about the differences between how we love our friends, to how we love our family, to how we may one day love a wife or a husband. The children then explored marriage and different family types, and we focused on what society accepts as being 'normal'. During a circle time, the children shared their views and opinions of same sex marriage and adoption of children. There were lots of different views and opinions among the group but everyone listened well and respected each other's opinion.
Next, we began thinking about transgender. We thought about how it would feel to be transgender and discussed how always being kind and understanding can help people who may be feeling down. We also completed the T-shirt competition and created designs that encouraged people to always be kind, respectful and understanding towards others.
Year 6
Following our whole school assembly with Rob Partington, Year 6 had an LGBT+ workshop. In the workshop children looked at stereotypes linked to the LGBT+ community and how these were not true representations of real life.
Rob Partington shared his personal story with us and talked about celebrating who he is. We looked at videos and images of the Pride parade in Manchester and then created our own banners for our very own Crab Lane Pride parade.
