Year 12 AiQ trip to the Black Cultural Archives

Last Monday, we hopped on the 37 bus to Brixton for a workshop curated by the Learning and Engagement team at the Black Cultural Archives. This group of our Year 12s are exploring AiQ Touchstones: how we use narratives to shape culture in order to encourage our young people to identify the values they wish to see amplified in our societies and the means to build these as norms. The BCA had planned an excellent session to educate the group about how we use source analysis to get a clear picture of reality. The session was not only deeply powerful in terms of understanding our local history but also taught a great deal about the power of imagery and personal story telling. It was also incredibly useful for the Extended Project Qualification in terms of understanding archives and variety in sources. Perhaps my favourite observation was hearing Zachary reflect on how transcripts can be mistaken because the person listening doesn’t recognise the word spoken in an accent not their own. 

This trip was particularly meaningful as it once again saw AiQ allied with our fantastic Head of Careers, Gina Visram. Gina chose to join the trip to find out more about what our Year 12s are exploring in AiQ which represents a deep theme at Alleyn’s. Careers and AiQ continuously work side by side. Very importantly, we particularly work together on developing our values education and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion provision within the curriculum. (Gina supports the Minority Students Union and I sit with our mighty Feminist Society.) We find ourselves frequently collaborating to create new ways of expressing these values. 

An example of this was the session we led just before half term with the whole of Year 11 on the topics of "Critical Thinking, Perceptions of Race and AI”. As part of the session, Gina shared two personal reflections as a Black woman in the UK. Firstly, the chronically negative presentation of the Notting Hill Carnival in the media and compared this with her decades-long primarily positive, inclusive experience of it. Secondly, her fears during the “race riots” throughout the UK in the summer of 2024 and temporarily feeling unsafe to use public transport. It was a powerful session. With the context of some of these personal experiences in mind, we turned to the topic of AI, exploring how it can exacerbate biases and the issue with data deserts, leading to challenging activities aimed at critical thinking and effective use of online searches. 

We really value giving space to these holistic visions of education at Alleyn’s as well as the precision we achieve in discrete subject lessons. 

Dorcas Maxwell (Director of AiQ) and Gina Visram (Head of Careers)