IT'S ALL ABOUT 'RAISING HORIZONS'

If one of the purposes of Black History Month is to highlight the positive contributions made by people of African, Caribbean and South Asian origin to Britain, then the pupils of Henry Compton School in Fulham have been well rewarded. On Wednesday October 11th the fifth ‘Raising Horizons’ seminars and Question Time event was held at the school. Invited guests included Arthur Torrington OBE, founder of the Windrush Foundation and Equiano Society,  Dr Hakim Adi, Reader in History at Middlesex University, Makeda Coaston Manager of the London Mayor’s Commission on African and Asian Heritage, Elliott Tucker an independent film maker and Marcia Haynes, a Lawyer.

Year 11 G&T students spent the morning interviewing each guest asking them about the critical people and critical moments that helped them on their journey to where they are today. The interviews will be placed here and used in future PSHE / citizenship lessons. Younger students were on hand to report on the event for the school newspaper and to make a film documentary.   

In the afternoon the whole of year 11 were invited to the school hall for a Question Time event with the guest speakers. Arthur Torrington introduced the afternoon with a short talk about the Caribbean immigrants that arrived in England in 1948 on the SS Windrush. This was followed by questions from the pupils about the panel’s experience of racism and the influence of music on young people. A break in the questions allowed Elliott to introduce a short anti-racism film ‘H20’, which his organisation ‘Film for Humanity’ had facilitated. The afternoon ended with further questions about whether there was still a need for Black History Month. The consensus, sadly, was that it is still needed. Events like ‘Raising Horizons’ are important, but integrating Black and Asian British history into the mainstream curriculum is still along way off.

#Posted 11 October 2006 at 8:23 PM

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