Experiences and Celebrations

June is Pride month so this is the perfect time to try something new in your settings. A great start is the story of Elmer the elephant. When we celebrated our first Pride month a few years ago we used the story of Elmer across all the age groups. The main message from Elmer is that you feel happier when you can be your authentic self. The story also celebrates Elmer’s rainbow patch work with a parade every year. This links beautifully with the concept of pride celebrations. We’ve also held our very own Pride Parade in June 2023 with music, dancing and joining together to celebrate.

This is our third year of replacing traditional Mothers’ and Fathers’ Day events/celebrations with the more inclusive ‘Family Day’ celebrations. We hold these every year in February and June and will choose a theme so that families can get involved with the children. We’ve had art experience events, gardening days, family forest school, playdough making activities, cooking experiences and our next plan is for science experiments. By changing the way we do things it means that no family is left behind and everyone feels included.

Community events

Islington has some great events for LGBT History month in February and across Pride month in June. We took groups of nursery class children to the History of Pride storytelling with Dani B at the Caledonian Clock Tower. The Ecology Centre also hold regular Drag storytelling events with Adam and Apple. We booked them to visit our setting for Pride month this year. Islington Libraries also have some great storytelling events, so keep a look out for those.

Curriculum

Storytelling is a great way to introduce concepts, themes and promote discussions with young children. We’ve created some great story sacks with books and props for ‘And Tango makes three’ and ‘Giraffes can’t dance’. Using the props and puppets really bring these heart warming stories to life.

We have a set of inclusive core books that we use in our classrooms that ensure all different families are represented, whether that’s two mums or two Dads, solo parents, adoptive parents and blended families. These books are part of our continuous provision and some are included in our lending library scheme. We’ve carefully audited our books to ensure we have a good mix of traditional stories but also removed stories that strengthen gender stereotypes.

The children have an agreed set of values that they decided were important to respect. These are using kind words, using kind hands, asking first, helping others, and ‘free to be me’. These values are displayed in our nursery reception so all visitors know that when they sign in, they are agreeing to respect these values. LGBTQIA+ Equality is woven into our policies and new families upon admission are given a statement about our commitment to be LGBTQIA+ allies. This helps build transparency from the very start and opens opportunities to discuss the importance of our inclusive curriculum.

We strongly believe that when all children are supported to embrace and celebrate their own differences, and those of others, every child can grow up feeling good about themselves and go on to reach their full potential.

Melanie Skipp has worked for Islington Council since 2016 when she relocated to London from Buckinghamshire. Melanie has been a Head of Nursery at Westbourne since 2018 and has an early years career that spans over 2 decades. Melanie graduated from Reading University with a BA in Early Childhood Development and Learning and was awarded Early Years Professional Status in 2010.

In her personal life Melanie is a proud member of the LGBTQIA+ Community and has a wife and a 5 year old daughter. As part of a Rainbow family, Melanie strives for equality and inclusion for or her own family and this has inspired her to champion for other LGBTQIA+ families.

Westbourne is a proud Pride in EDI and Gold Healthy Early Years setting.