Rainbow Flag Award

Rainbow Flag Award

We were delighted to be awarded the full flag status in December 2018. Pleasingly, our reaccreditation in June 2021 was also a success.

The Rainbow Flag Award is a national quality assurance framework focusing on LGBT+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, plus other related identities) inclusion and visibility.

The Rainbow Flag award encourages a whole organisation approach to LGBT+ inclusion, as well as developing strategies to combat LGBTphobic bullying.

We are committed to making the most of training opportunities to ensure best practice across the curriculum and throughout the school to continue to build on our strengths as an inclusive school.

Our preliminary work towards this award began in the Summer Term 2017 when all staff and all Year 4 pupils completed online surveys to find out how we were doing with tackling issues such as homophobic bullying.

In October 2017 we invited Action Transport Theatre to our school to perform ‘Happily Ever After’. We had taken our Year 5/6 pupils to watch this play when it was first performed and we loved the way powerful messages can be shared in an engaing way through drama and this time chose to include all our Key Stage 2 pupils. Thanks to good sponsorship and joined up thinking the play has now been produced as a film. The launch took place in January 2020 and a team of staff from our school joined the celebration event and familiarised our selves with the well-produced resources.

In November 2017 we produced an action plan to inform our work over the coming year, and three members of our staff went on a day’s training session with The Proud Trust. We were delighted to hear that, as a result of this day, our school had been accepted to work towards achieving the Rainbow Flag Award!

During this month, we also introduced the book ‘Alien Nation’ by Matty Donaldson to all of our pupils. The link to our anti-bullying work carried out during October was strong, and the book helped us embed the message:

We held our first “Pride in our Work” coffee morning in July 2018 and this continued in 2019 when we moved the event to tie in with LGBT+ History Month in February.

We have maintained this important event each year, and even did a remote event during the COVID lockdown.  2023 saw the theme of Behind the Lens, which we incorporated into our annual coffee morning.  Each class had created a dance, video or poem, which they shared with us and you can find the presentation at the bottom of the page with other downloadable files.

We then decided that we preferred our coffee morning event in the Summer. Unfortunately, our plans were halted by COVID so we held a songwriting session and Pride in our Work parties with specific year groups instead.

All Are Welcome (to the tune of Sing Hosanna)

We are part of the Westminster family,
We are all treated just the same;
Doesn’t matter what we look like,
We’re all different in a special way.

All are welcome, all are welcome,
All are welcome at Westminster school.
All are welcome, all are welcome,
All are welcome at our school.

We are loved whatever our gender,
We are loved each and every race;
We share work and play together,
Sharing friendship every day.

All are welcome, all are welcome,
All are welcome at Westminster school.
All are welcome, all are welcome,
All are welcome at our school.

We are here to help one another,
We want to be the best we can;
We know we can make a difference,
We are part of a special plan.

All are welcome, all are welcome,
All are welcome at Westminster school.
All are welcome, all are welcome,
All are welcome at our school.

COVID restrictions meant we could not hold our “Pride in our Work” coffee mornings in Summer 2020 and Summer 2021, but our good work continued and included a Pride Party in Year 2.

More Information

The following websites give us information to support our work:

You may enjoy these mini films:

Our Summer 2017+ Training Record

Level One Event – Promoting Diversity and Challenging Homophobia in Primary Schools: Kath Lloyd and Sue Finch

Alien Nation Book Launch: Bev Marsh and Sue Finch

LGBT+ Training: Kathleen Spain

LGBT+ Training and action planning: Laura Taylor, Kathleen Spain, Sue Finch

Inclusive Policies: Kathleen Spain and Sue Finch, 25th January 2018

Basic Awareness Training delivered by Proud Trust for all staff, 6th February 2018

Working with trans and gender non-conforming young people: Tracy Phillips, 27th February 2018

Parents and Governors working together meeting: Jenny Farrall, Sue Finch, Lisa Hughes, Sue Mayers, Kathleen Spain, Laura Taylor, 23rd May 2018

Trans Positive Education in Primary Schools, June 2019: Tracy Phillips, Bethany Smethurst

Faith in Yourself- A space to explore what it’s like to be LGBT+ and have a religion, faith or belief, November 2019: Tracy Phillips, Bethany Smethurst.

Happily Ever After Film Launch, January 2020: Emma Dunn, Sue Finch, Tracy Phillips, Bethany Smethurst.

LGBT+ Training and action planning: Lisa Hughes and Holly Pierce: 22nd January 2021 (training provided by the Proud Trust to support our renewal application for full Rainbow Flag)

Equalities training (Modern Governor) – Lisa Hughes and Sue Mayers (April/May 2021)

Trans Awareness training (Modern Governor) – Sue Mayers (April 2021)

Trans Awareness training (Modern Governor) – Lisa Hughes (September 2021