Barnet Hill Academy – Year 9

As part of their British Values Studies, a group of Year 9 girls visited Barnet Hill Academy, an Islamic faith school for girls between the ages of 11 to 16 years.

The girls introduced themselves, noting the similarities between names such as Miriam and Maryam. A starter activity, where the girls answered questions such as ‘The place where I feel happiest is…’ showed that they shared many of the same thoughts and feelings. On whiteboards, they wrote down what they did during the day and compared notes. Again, there were a lot of similarities. They were able to spend time with each other; chatting about their hobbies, their friends and their lives in general…in fact, they could not stop chatting! There was supposed to be a video, but it buffered! This did not halt the activities as a break with kosher snacks for all beckoned.

After the break, each girl drew a picture of something that represented her, then put it in a box and passed the box around. The pictures were then drawn out, and students had to discuss what they saw in the picture and tried to guess who the picture belonged to. Our girls also had a tour of Barnet Hill Academy: there are 44 girls in this secondary school which shares a site with a small mixed primary.

The Building Bridges morning was very successful, demonstrating that there is much more that unites us than divides us. Thank you to Mrs Abecasis for organising Tuesdays event, and to all the girls and their exemplary behaviour.