Christian-Muslim Pupil Swap Tackles Prejudice

|TOP|Christian and Muslim pupils from two West Yorkshire junior schools are swapping pupils as part of an initiative to help break down prejudices and enable them to learn more about different cultures and religions.

While almost all pupils at the Warwick Road School in Batley are Muslim, pupils at the Southdale School in Ossett are nearly all white Christian, reports the BBC.

The school swap sees half of the pupils in each school’s year four classes swap their places for one day of the week to enable them to experience firsthand the believes and lives of children outside of their own religion.

The ability for children to experience other cultures was essential, the schools said.

And Elodia Eccles, the head teacher of Southdale Church of England Junior School, said the school swap has already proved to be a great success.

"It's a really polarised project with two different schools, two authorities and two cultures," she said.

|AD|"But we've found that there are so many similarities and we're trying to break down the lack of understanding of different cultures.”

During the weekly swap the different pupils engage in various activities that allow them to encounter other cultures such as readings, drama and art.

"It's a joy to see the children from both schools forming real friendships,” said Ms Eccles.

The school swap initiative has already seen several schools take part in similar twinning schemes within Kirklees but the latest partnership between Warwick Road School and Southdale School is the first time that the council has collaborated with the neighbouring authority of Wakefield.

Saied Laher, community partnerships manager for Kirklees, said the project had worked “tremendously well”.

“We wanted to make sure that what we are doing locally works and changes the mindset of children and young people," he said.

"Hopefully in some cases it will also help the parents because sometimes parents can have more prejudices than the children."