Two of our P7 pupils, Niamh and Alice, approached our Senior Leadership in September 2017, inspired to take action by a BBC documentary (No More Boys and Girls – Can Our Kids Go Gender Free?) on gender bias. Both girls spoke at a whole staff meeting, inviting all classes P1-P7 to take part in a survey designed to investigate gender bias in our own school (based on the Drawing the Future survey). 650 boys and girls were asked to draw their future occupations and Niamh and Alice collated and analysed results to explore attitudes. They presented their findings at Assembly and have implemented many other ideas for challenging views and raising awareness of gender equality, now joined by two fellow P7 girls.

They have impressed us all with their eloquence and understanding and have begun looking at the Drawing the Future report to help make comparisons with their own findings and plan actions to address these.

The group has also undertaken surveys to explore gender bias and is assisting the Pupil Council in purchasing gender neutral books as well as making their own recommendations for books for the Library.

The group is conscious that is is all female so came up with a plan to interview and select two male and two female interested Primary Six pupils who wish to continue their campaign next session. The girls prepared application forms and conducted interviews for selected candidates. From over fifty P6 applications, they interviewed ten and appointed four of the applicants. They also suggested each candidate selected for interview will require a reference from their Class Teacher. The P6 group will join and be mentored by the P7 group in the summer term and we are very impressed by their ideas and approach in setting up systems that can be sustained over time.

Inspired by the group, two further P7 pupils approached the Senior Learning Team (SLT) about raising awareness of Equality for LGBT. The girls gave an extraordinarily well pitched and appropriately gauged presentation to P4-P7 and will give a further presentation to P7. They will work with SLT to help produce a child friendly version of our Equalities Policy.

https://www.educationandemployers.org/drawing-the-future-report-published/

DrawingTheFuture