Above: Bishop's Hatfield Girls' School website.

As a school, Bishop's Hatfield want to ensure their learners are being prepared to understand and appreciate changes to the diversity of the local community and wider UK society. To address this, a whole school strategy is being developed to actively celebrate cultural diversity, encourage a feeling of belonging and inclusion among the whole school population, and reach out to the local community as much as possible. As the school's headteacher says, ‘As a school we wish to restore some local faith in education by updating our facilities and providing the best possible opportunities for pupils of this school, as well as for the local community'.

Cultural diversity in citizenship

Using the new curriculum as a starting point, the school's citizenship department has taken a lead in exploring cultural diversity and identity. The head of life skills (which includes citizenship) is working with all heads of department to embed citizenship across the school and integrate themes such as cultural diversity in all subjects. Staff questioned whether they were doing enough at school to enable girls to counter the negative views that the girls were hearing from some members of the local community.

A new citizenship scheme of work for year 7 pupils introduces the idea of identity. As the citizenship teacher explains, ‘before they go on to look at things like racism, they have to know that they are not culturally neutral. Around here, if they are not in a minority group they think of themselves as not having a culture.' The pupils create collages of their own identities, find things that everyone has in common and begin to examine the meaning of ‘culture'. They explore and present their findings on what it means to be British, the reasons for migration, the changes to Britain over time and positive aspects of the mix of cultures in Britain today.

This understanding is then developed year on year. In year 8, pupils explore the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers through a citizenship unit linked with drama. They also tackle the theme of bullying, focusing on discrimination and exploring the meaning and effects of racism through the case study of Stephen Lawrence. Year 9 learners look at discrimination and stereotyping as part of a careers focus in life skills. In year 10, students go out into the local community to encourage communication between different ethnic groups.

Beyond citizenship

Other subjects have also made changes to their curriculum to increase the emphasis on identity and cultural diversity. Learners study poetry from other cultures in English and global terrorism as part of GCSE history. In religious studies they research different faiths, visit churches, a mosque, a Gurdwara and a Hindi community, and talk to visitors from different faiths. As one pupil remarked, ‘If you can actually meet a person you can learn so much more. It becomes normal and you become interested'. Cultural difference is mostly celebrated through assemblies: Christian festivals are always celebrated, and Chinese New Year and Ramadan are also a focus.

During an annual multicultural week, all departments focus on cultural diversity and include work to develop learning about different cultures. Learners make presentations in year assemblies based on their work in lessons and the headteacher celebrates successful people, especially women, from different countries and cultures. Achievements outside school are valued and celebrated; for example a pupil who has won awards for Indian dancing has performed in assemblies.

Bishop's Hatfield is part of a strong extended school consortium and works particularly closely with primary schools as a way of reaching parents early. Learners of all ages have opportunities to meet different people, including local elderly people and young children through community projects, and the school works with the local police, including the race relations officer, to help promote inclusion.

Student views

When six year 11 students from a range of different backgrounds were interviewed about inclusion, respect and diversity within the school, their responses were mostly positive. They thought that on the whole people were respectful and accepting of each other's cultural backgrounds and traditions, and that most learners were concerned ‘not to offend anyone else'. Some thought that background was irrelevant, but others said differences are important and that there was some ignorance about other cultures. All agreed that there was a natural curiosity about people from different backgrounds and that people shared information in an open way.

One student did say that she would like to see some celebration of Black History Month, and another pointed out that although she is from south India, her roots are Tamil and none of her festivals are celebrated. ‘We've just had Tamil New Year. No one knows what Tamil is, no one knows the language. Everyone thinks I'm Indian - I speak Hindi, but my main language is Tamil. '

Being British means different things to the students and is something they want to debate. Some said, ‘being born here'. Others said that living here was enough to make you British. Some said that different groups in Britain should respect each other and live by the rules of the community: ‘If you go to a country you should respect that country - their customs and their way of life.'

Keen to build on work to date, the school is now planning to:

• promote local culture by involving the local community in local history and building up a bank of historical experiences
• review multicultural week to include a focus on ‘Who do we think we are?'
• make more links with the local community, including setting up a multicultural group, making links with the local library service, working with the university, working with representatives from community groups and putting on dance and drama performances
• strengthen pupil voice, particularly the opportunity to be consulted on effective teaching and learning
• install a video-conferencing suite to enable closer links with schools in Ghana and India for which the school raises funds.

For further information, please select http://www.bishophatfield.herts.sch.uk.