Pride Week Rundown
This half term we held our annual Pride celebration here at Ryburn. We had a wide variety of activities taking place and our LGBTQ+ society along with staff worked tirelessly to make it a huge success. We’ve had parties, pictures and pops of colour all throughout the week. We’re so proud of staff and students for what they have achieved and for coming together to celebrate identity.
Kicking off the week we held an after school Pride Party. This was open to all students and we even had some special guests from Happy Valley Pride and Todmorden High School. A wonderful way to start the celebrations, we were treated to performances from our talented students in both lower school and Ryburn Sixth, as well as a song from our very own Mrs Logan. The audience were very impressed and students from Todmorden High commented that “it was brilliant. A great celebration of LGBTQ+ individuals, and it was just lovely to see.” Our student leaders of the LGBTQ+ society, who played a huge part in organising the event, were blown away by the positive responses to the event. Lewis Murphy (Year 13) said “I’m so proud of everyone who has come together to make this happen. I’m really happy that so many people turned up.”
For Wednesday’s iGen session, the LGBTQ+ society put together a lesson plan around gender, sexuality and attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community. It covered a wide range of subjects such as definitions of different terminology, the difference between intentional and unintentional offence and how we can create a safe environment for everyone. We were very impressed at the maturity and respect students showed during the lesson.
We also set up a face painting and photo station where students could get Pride colours on their faces and take pictures with lots of fun props. It was a great bit of fun for the middle of the week and we snapped lots of happy faces.
Moving on to Thursday, the library hosted a special showing of the first episode of Netflix’s new show ‘Heartstopper’, based on the graphic novel by Alice Oseman, for Years 8, 10 and 12. It centres around British high schoolers Nick and Charlie and their friends, as they navigate the twists and turns of relationships, friendships, and self-discovery. The series has been well received by audiences and is available to watch on Netflix.
Finally, the Year 8 students got very very colourful as they took part in a colour run raising over £200 for the Stonewall Charity. No school uniforms were harmed in the process as we asked students to bring a change of clothes to get plastered with colour. Needless to say, everyone was looking very vibrant as they passed the finish line.
It was a fantastic week on the whole and once again we would like to say a massive congratulations to The LGBTQ+ society as well as all of the staff who helped bring together this wonderful week celebrating everyone for who they are. To see all of the pictures from throughout the week check out our Pride at Ryburn 22 Facebook album.