It’s Pride month so let the celebrations begin! 

With all of the Pride flags and celebrations over the next few weeks, your students will be curious about the history and significance of this month. As their teacher, you might be unsure about how to answer all of their questions so we have come up with a few tips on how to do so.

Start the conversation 

Most of the time children will not ask questions about the things they are curious about so it’s a good idea to get the conversation started yourself. You can do this by having a presentation about LGBTQ+ history during one of your history lessons or utilising storybooks for primary school children with LGBTQ+ themes. These situations will naturally bring up questions that you will then be able to answer. 

Know the facts 

Before speaking about LGBTQ+ issues it’s important that you know all of the facts. This way you will be prepared to answer any questions your students will have and feel confident in doing so. Try to do some independent research by watching documentaries and reading articles before you get questions from your students. To help you get started we asked Luke, one of our lead consultants and a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community, what websites are perfect for research and he suggested Stonewall.org, History.com and LGBTQ+HistoryMonth.com.

Keep it simple and positive

The LGBTQ+ community has been through some painful events throughout history so when speaking about their history it can be hard to explain why someone would discriminate against another person for who they are. Try framing things in a positive way and focusing on the resilience and accomplishments of the community whilst keeping things simple so that your students can understand.

Use child-friendly resources

There are so many resources available on the internet that will help you explore LGBTQ+ issues in a child-friendly manner. For example, the No Outsiders campaign, founded by Andrew Moffat, has a multitude of primary school books that normalise each individual’s differences and there are a bunch of videos on youtube exploring a number of different topics. You can learn more about the founder of the campaign through our sister company, Smile Leadership’s blog - Andrew Moffat: The gay headteacher who started No Outsiders.

We also have a blog focusing on how you can incorporate LGBTQ+ history into your teaching with useful resources and lesson plans linked, so be sure to check that out!