29 January 2019
On Friday 25th January, our whole school councillors were invited to watch a performance and attend a workshop on ‘radicalisation’, along with the Home Office of Manchester City Council and the Huffington Post. The performance explained themes such as hate and anger, and the interactive nature of the performance provided our students with a better understanding of how we would deal with radicalisation.
Before the performance, our students were encouraged to express their existing opinions about religion and radicalisation, which gave them the opportunity to discuss different viewpoints. This helped them to appreciate this amazing production with an open mind.
The performance itself was incredibly thought provoking, keeping the audience engaged with the hard-hitting issues it presented. For the second part of the performance our students watched certain sections again and were encouraged to stop the action when they thought a certain character could or should have acted differently. They were able to interact and replace the actor if they wanted to, enabling them to explore the ways different responses and scenarios can play out.
The Huffington Post was invited to film a short documentary of the performance in collaboration with the Home Office of Manchester City Council, and consequently, a selection of our student councillors and staff were interviewed afterwards. They answered questions relating to radicalisation and hate, but in discussion afterwards, the question that stood out was specifically about Manchester:
Have you sensed more hate since the Manchester Arena attack?
A resounding response came from the interviewees, they believed that Manchester was actually now brought closer together by the attack. In addition, they have been reminded to find and #chooselove in the things they do, whilst also realising the importance of community and the impact we can all generate when #WeStandTogether.
