School pupils have been shown an assembly that promotes “respect and tolerance” after the summer holidays were hit with riots. The streamed assembly focused on some of the positive stories of communities coming together amidst unrest in the country.
The former teacher behind it said that she hoped it would help schools get a “fresh start.” Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said that the riots were a “deeply powerful reminder of the importance of education.”
The violence began the night following a stabbing attack in Southport that saw three children killed at a dance class. Riots spread to various towns and cities in both England and Northern Ireland, fuelled by online misinformation along with the far-right and anti-immigration sentiment.
The “Big Back to School Assembly” features a presentation by children from St Nicholas Church of England Primary Academy in Boston in Lincolnshire. A map on the wall pinpoints all the countries where pupils were born with a fact about each one. This is to help them better understand each other’s backgrounds.
“We believe being different is a good thing that should be celebrated,” one pupil said.
With around 20 different languages spoken among the pupils, headteacher Fiona Booth said that the staff were used to promoting a sense of “belonging” but that the violence over the summer had made it harder.
“[The assembly] is about just kick-starting where we left off before summer, because of everybody’s different experiences,” she said in an interview before the assembly,” she said. “The things that have been streamed [on to] children’s mobile devices, [on to] grown-ups’ television screens – we’ve had no control over that. We’ve not been able to temper any of that. We’ve not been able to anchor or bring the calm in that chaos.”
Booth and some of the children had family members who may have could have taken part in some of the violence or, in other cases, were from households that were targeted by the violence. She acknowledged that there could be friction between some pupils but added that tolerance was “not the same as liking everybody,” and that one role with the school was to help children learn “how to disagree well.”
