Festival of Culture 2024: Wednesday 13th March 2024

Dear Parent/Carer 

This term we will be celebrating our first festival of culture as an Academy on Wednesday 13th March. This will involve sessions exploring a range of cultures from around the world. The day has been requested, designed and launched by our brilliant Year 11 Wellbeing leaders; we are extremely proud of the work they have carried out over the past 18 months to make this event a reality.  

Each Year Group will have a drop-down day on Wednesday 13th March during which they will have the opportunity to learn about and explore a range of cultures through a particular theme. 

Year 7 will be exploring culture through the arts; their day will have a focus on creation and performance with the opportunity to explore a range of cultures and practices including those from Japanese, African and South Indian cultures. 

Year 8 will be exploring culture through language; their day will have a focus on creating and using language, including learning new phrases in other languages. They will have the opportunity to explore a range of cultures including Welsh, Yoruba and Latin America.  

Year 9 will be exploring cultures under threat with the Humanities team; their day will focus on the broad concept of culture and what that looks like in Hanham as well as understanding from a Historical and Geographical perspective cultures that are under threat including Native American and Amazonian culture.  

Year 10 will be exploring cultures through creativity with the DT and Science teams; their day will focus on 2 sessions, in which they will get to learn about a specific cultural practice and carry it out through a practical segment of learning. Students will once again explore a range of cultures including Columbian, Jewish and African cultures, as well as the relevance of some practices across multiple cultures.  

Year 11 will be exploring culture through wellbeing; their day has been very much shaped by their needs and wants at this point in the year. They will have the opportunity to explore the culture of happiness, the importance of music across cultures for the purpose of wellbeing and sports from around the world including kabaddi.  

All students can wear non-school uniform on the day with a donation of £1. Year 7 and 11 should wear clothes comfortable for practical activity due to some elements of their day. The non-school uniform we would love to see expressed are colours relating to our students and family’s cultural heritage. Some staff will even be in their traditional cultural dress on the day. If this is not possible then we ask that students wear red in support of ‘Show Racism the Red Card’: https://www.theredcard.org/  

We very much look forward to sharing this day with the students and the wider Hanham community, with the intention for this to be an annual event we celebrate as an Academy. If you have any questions, please do contact Nicola Hurrell, Assistant Principal by email, [email protected]. 

Yours sincerely 

Mrs T Wolyn | Head of PSHE and Mr S O’Callaghan | Academy Principal