Invicta Vlogs
Committing to a REAL Change
I hope that you and your loved ones are happy and healthy. I am pleased to introduce myself as Senior Prefect responsible for Internationalism for 2020 - 2021. I look forward to supporting Invicta’s commitment to championing equality and celebrating diversity!
Throughout my time at Invicta, students have always been empowered to embrace the talents and traits that mark them as unique; further developing the confidence to strive for personal and academic excellence.
Whilst this is what our school aims to achieve, we recognise that there are certain flaws within wider society that can hinder one’s personal development. One of which being discrimination and more specifically racism. As a school which takes pride in our diverse community, we aspire to create an environment whereby all students and staff are able to flourish regardless of the colour of their skin.
In recent news events, we have seen a violation of racial equality amongst the deaths of Breonna Taylor, George Flloyd and Ahmaud Arbery. Many, like myself, are left in dismay at the thought of racial discrimination still being prominent within today’s society and in order for there to be change, we realise that action needs to be taken. It is no longer enough to state that one is non-racist. Therefore, Invicta Grammar School looks forward to taking the necessary steps in being actively anti-racist.
As a first step, myself and many supportive students have shared a message with the whole of our school community which highlights our passion for racial equality. We had 57 students from Years 7 - 13 who participated and more importantly, were ready to be catalysts for racial equality. We would be really grateful if all readers can follow the link below to be inspired by our hope for change.
Students were later given the opportunity to share their views on our video during Form Time last week. After viewing the responses to the video, students felt proud to be part of a school community that celebrates the many ethnicities represented by the student body. Our Students have told us that reading books, talking about racism, campaigning and supporting anti-racism organisations are amongst the actions that they have pledged to take and it is refreshing to know that students feel empowered to be pioneers for racial equality. Mrs Bolton, our School Librarian, has been updating the library catalogue with ideas for books that you can read to develop your understanding of the challenges faced by many in the BAME community. Please follow the link below or log in to the library via the Student Portal, to find reading resources to help you gain more insight into the topic of racial discrimination.
https://uk.accessit.online/inv02/#!resources/visualsearch
I would like to thank all teachers and students for their support in our message for racial equality. However, I appreciate that there is no quick fix to achieving racial equality. Therefore, myself and my fellow peers Hannah and Doherty are working with the Leadership Group to develop initiatives that will be implemented throughout our school curriculum and allow us to achieve our goal of being an actively anti-racist school. This will involve learning more about terms such as systemic racism, casual racism and white privilege, as well as creating an environment where we can ask questions of ourselves and others. From this, we hope to equip all students with the education and values needed to be vehicles for change in the wider community. Thank you for reading my blog and for listening to the message delivered by the student body! I know that our community will be positively impacted by our commitment to equality for the better!
Please do take care and stay safe.
Solape Tunde-Dauda
Senior Prefect - Internationalism
