Great Cheverell
Mercedes henning is headteacher at Great Cheverell School.
Mrs Henning moved to Wiltshire from Johannasberg, and is originally from Zambia, and has made it her mission to ensure children in the village had cultural awareness
As part of our work on helping children to enjoy the wonderful multicultural society in which we live, we had a Diwali day at school on 25th November, where Kalpesh of K’Z Dance told the children about some lovely Diwali traditions and stories, and then everyone got to do amazing Bollywood dancing with him! It was a day of colour, brightness and fun, and everyone laughed, danced until they were breathless and learnt a lot. The Indian music was wonderful, the Diwali traditions fascinating. We had to take all the usual Covid precautions, so we could not gather together as a whole school, but within the Bubbles, each class got to have a really great day.
We converted to Academy Status in September 2011 so that we have more control over our curriculum and more independence to provide the very best education possible for our children. We belong to the family of schools in Salisbury Diocese and have formed a formal collaboration with four local primary schools, the Emmanuel Collaboration, to ensure the best possible provision for our children.
Mercedes Henning is the Headteacher at Holy Trinity Church of England Primary Academy in Great Cheverell, Wiltshire
Asian Culture Awareness Day Kalpesh will be in school on Wednesday 25th November
(next week) to tell us about Diwali and to teach us some amazing Bollywood
Dancing. If your child wishes to, they can wear their brightest clothing to
school on that day. They must be dressed warmly and must have sensible shoes
because all our usual outdoor activities will continue. The Bollywood dance
will take place outside.
Las year before lcokdown we put run a deiverity roject because our children belong to quite a narrow cultural society, we have little diversity in the community
We had received a grant frim the Wiltshire and Swindon cultural education pahersnip and we had put march funds
Worked with Salisbury msuem to learn about ancient eople and the romans, and the nrormans who made teir way to England
Have also been on trips to the mosque
Worked with the windrush generation and hd an afghantsti refugee come in and tell us about his life
The kids are incredibly aware and
Kalpesh came in before lockdwona dnw as so delighting and inspiring hat we asked him back, this time in a covid secure wa
He was btilliant and we dealt with it in bubles
Did dancing utside and a presentation on Diwali inside
Great for the kids to learn about something dso bright, positive and colourful at a time where it can feel very dark and miserable
South Africa, important they know people who luive in different cultures and arts of the world
They are brilliaitn at chllaneing preducice and get to experience pepoe who live very different lives o them
At lunchtimes you cans ometimes sing the children sing in the traditional zulu way
They do it joyfully, just like we would in Africa and it’s a beautiful sound
]kalpesh
