• Discussion about the uniqueness of each child.
• Unique banner prominently displayed on Yellow Flag Wall.
• Laminated card illustrating ‘hello’ in many different languages clearly displayed on Yellow Flag wall.
• The class had a Vietnam day. A guest speaker from Vietnam gave a presentation on Vietnamese culture and traditions.

• The whole class were involved in making a collage on Saint Brigid’s cloak. Teamwork-working together successfully, respectfully and in harmony a key focus. Display outside classroom.
• The cloak theme involved discussion on diversity, individuality and equality.

• The confirmation -respect as a theme; the importance of showing respect to everyone.
• Children of other religious traditions beliefs wrote about their beliefs and cultures. This work is on display in Yellow Flag corner.
• Whole class project on different religions and cultures e.g Islam, Hinduism etc.

• Language of the month - Alvi, Swad, Puspita, Shekh, Ayon and Mim are teaching the class Bengali words this month.
• Projects on Scotland, England, Wales (brochures)
• Study on northern Ireland
• Study on women who made a difference in history.
• Chinese new year art work based on Chinese symbols.
• Bullying survey.
• Yellow Flag Art Competition- discussion around the meaning of racism.

• Language of the month –polish. Oliwia and Aleksandra are teaching the class polish words.
• The class studied Nelson Mandela in history –linked to theme on racism.
• The class looked at the history of nth Ireland and the troubles.
• Chinese new year art displayed outside classroom.
• Discussion on racism-linked to Yellow Flag Art competition.

• Projects on nelson Mandela.
• Studying other countries-eng land, Scotland, Wales.
• Studying diversity in past linking lives, social activities, working conditions, rights of different classes during the industrial revolution in England & class system as it would have affected travel on board the Titanic.
• Exploring racism-meaning..banners in art-link to Yellow Flag art class entries to competition
• Individual poster entries
• Austrian folk dance
• Posted letters to members in the community regarding the school participation activities initiatives for Yellow Flag programme and received replies.

• Project on ml king-focused on inequality, injustice, discrimination, human rights issues.
• English identified words associated with Yellow Flag-change, equality, unity and wrote acrostic poem.
• Commenced work for Yellow Flag art competition.

Theme: Anti-Racism

The three 1st classes used the story ‘The Little Black Sheep’ by E Shaw as a basis for their lessons. This is an endearing story of an outcast little black sheep who is bullied by the bossy sheepdog ‘Polo’. The little black sheep longs to fit in and look like all the others in the flock. However the shepherd loves him because he is different. In a crisis it is the black sheep who saves the whole flock. In the end the shepherd increases the flock to include all vanities so that the little black sheep no longer feels left out.

The children discussed the feelings of the little black sheep at the different stages of the story and of how they would feel if something like this happened to them. They spoke about feeling different /lonely/left out and how we can help someone overcome these feelings e.g. being inclusive in our games, sharing with others, not using offensive language to others etc. The children then illustrated the various stages of the story.

The last line of the story sums up what the children learnt from it; “Each one was different and that was nice, because now they were all the same”.

We celebrated friendship week 9th-13th February. We discussed friendships i.e. what is a friend, to keep a friend and to be a friend. Together as a class we came up with a recipe for friendship – things that make a good friend (trust, honesty, helpfuless, fun etc.)We discussed how friends can have different interests, be from different countries, look different etc. We discussed friendships on the yard and the importance of inclusion of everyone i.e in our games, conversations. We spoke about how we can help others who may be on their own on the yard. We made a friendship display in the classroom “friendship garden” with kind words written on our flowers. Children posted kind stories of friendships on the display using sticky tabs.

We also discussed Chinese New Year. We spoke about the celebration and the traditions of the festival. We also learned about the country. We made our crafts based on the Chinese New Year- Chinese lanterns and Chinese paintings using red and gold. One child spoke to the class about the celebration and how animals are associated with each New Year.

In February we focused on friendship. In SPHE we discussed the qualities of a friend and focused on being a good friend in the yard. We also celebrated ‘Friendship week’. During this week the children recorded good deeds on yellow post its and we created a ‘good deeds’ display. Finally we created a ‘Friendship flower’ using the children’s handprints.

We also studied bullying. We defined bullying and the children acted out scenarios where they /their friends were being bullied. The children learned what they should do if they witness bullying. Finally we carried out a bullying survey. These images were reviewed by the class teacher and any issues were looked into.

We also began our study on Racism. The children helped to create a definition of racism and we referred back to our study on Martin Luther King. We discussed racism in sport and linked to recent media reports.

Finally we learned about China and Chinese New Year. We discussed the customs, housing, occupations, sports, The Great Wall of China and the animals that represent each year. In history we read the legend of the Silkworm and explored how silk is made in science.

During this month we discussed friendship & friendship week. We revised poems ‘Circle of Friends’ and wrote poems about friendship. Using the friendship topic we explored bullying –the children came up with a class definition of bullying and how it relates to them.

Using the story of ‘The Ugly Duckling’ we explored bullying in further detail. The children wrote about situations they experienced themselves or they witnessed happening. We then scrunched up all our paper and this showed the effect of bullying on someone. We used words like left out lonely, sad and excluded which the children had learned in the story and the children were able to relate to a time they felt like ‘The Ugly Duckling’.

We created yellow flags under the theme ‘We are all the same on the inside’ for the YF art competition
In SPHE we discussed friendship & the qualities of a good friend.

The children recorded acts of kindness/examples of friendship on yellow post-its to mark friendship week.
In VA the children drew a picture in response to the song “Being Connected”. The theme of the pictures was celebrating diversity.

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