Celebrating Pride Month‍

Pride Month is a time of celebration and recognition of the LGBTQ+ community across the globe, celebrated throughout the month of June each year to commemorate the Stonewall Uprising in June 1969. Here at The Diana Award, we have put together a list of ideas for activities and workshops to celebrate Pride Month in your school, raise awareness about the LGBTQ+ community, and promote allyship.

These activities can also go towards earning our Respect Badge for your Anti-Bullying Ambassador team! This badge is all about championing diversity and inclusion and promoting acceptance and equal rights for any of the nine protected characteristics, which include gender reassignment, sexual orientation, and disability. Discrimination and bullying behaviour related to sexual orientation or gender identity are classed as a hate crime under the Equality Act 2010 and are against the law. If you want to find out more about the protected characteristics, click here. You can find out more about our Anti-Bullying Ambassador Badges and how to earn them here.

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‍Activity Ideas for Pride Month (and beyond!)‍

We recommend getting the whole student body involved in these activities (being mindful of current COVID-related restrictions) to emphasise how important it is to work together and celebrate everyone for who they are. While Pride Month is a great opportunity to run LGBTQ+ activities, remember that it’s important to be an Upstander to LGBTQ+-related bullying behaviour year-round.

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‍Fly the Pride flag outside your school (and keep it up!)

• Invite everyone in school to watch as the flag is raised! You could fly all the flags of the LGBTQ+ community around school too, especially in reception so everyone who visits the school feels welcome.

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‍Organise a Colour Run

• Ask everyone to dress in colourful clothes and accessories for a fun run. It should be a great visual way to celebrate Pride Month and the LGBTQ+ community. You could also invite parents/carers and those in the wider community to attend and get involved in the run or dressing up.‍

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Fundraise for an LGBTQ+ Charity  

• You could host a ‘Be Yourself’ Day where you invite students to have a non-uniform day themed around the colour scheme of one of the LGBTQ+ community’s flags. Students could contribute a small amount towards this, with all proceeds going to an LGBTQ+ charity. (Similarly, consider what other opportunities there are to fundraise for an LGBTQ+ charity – for example, students could pay a small amount to purchase colourful items for the colour run we mentioned above!)

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‍Decorate your school with LGBTQ+ flags/colours/photos  

• Get the whole school involved by asking each class/tutor group to get creative and decorate their own classroom! This will increase visibility and help promote an inclusive school environment.

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‍Invite an external guest speaker of the LGBTQ+ community to talk about their experiences

• Guest speakers can be a great way for allies to learn about communities that are different to their own and will also help your LGBTQ+ peers to see themselves represented – something that can be a powerful and important experience. Remember that LGBTQ+ is itself a diverse community and that some letters are often ‘forgotten’. You could reach out to LGBTQ+ organisations like Just Like Us, who offer speakers to schools.

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‍Make an LGBTQ+ inclusion-focused pledge and get everybody in school to sign it!

• Write your pledge statement and have everyone sign their name around it. This could be on a noticeboard in Reception or up in the school hall – find a big space where everyone will be able to see this and be reminded of the pledge they have made!  
• Examples of pledge statements:
  ‘I will be an Upstander to HBT (homophobic, biphobic and transphobic) bullying behaviours’
  ‘I will always do my best to be an ally’
  ‘I pledge to be respectful and inclusive of everyone’
  ‘I will embrace difference and be myself’  
  ‘I will always be myself and allow others to do the same’

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‍Create a themed collage using the colours of the Pride flag  

• Make a large display up on a noticeboard in your school. You could assign each colour of the flag to a different class or year group, so everyone is working together and getting creative!

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‍Ask teachers to celebrate an ‘LGBTQ+ icon of the day/week’ in their respective subject field

• This is a great way to include LGBTQ+ representation across the curriculum, not just in History or PSHE! Your form tutor could also add this into weekly form time. You could share our LGBTQ+ Inclusive Curriculum Guide with your teachers to help them with this.  

Host an LGBTQ+ themed art competition

• You could hold a gallery showcase in school of all the artwork submitted, and invite students, parents/carers and the wider community to visit. Art could focus on anything LGBTQ+-related, including the history of LGBTQ+ rights, well-known LGBTQ+ icons, or more!

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‍Host a talent show

• A talent show is a great way to celebrate difference and individuality. Anyone can participate and express their talent, to recognise that everyone is unique and we should embrace that.

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These are just a few ideas for activities to get you started for Pride month, but we encourage you to think of your own initiatives to support the LGBTQ+ community too! Promote allyship and champion diversity and inclusion - it’s important to raise awareness about how to be an Upstander to LGBTQ+ related bullying behaviour all year round.

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‍LGBTQ+ charities you could fundraise for‍

- Stonewall
- MindOut
- BiPride UK
- LGBT Foundation
- The Diana Award (you’re already on our website!)

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‍Support can be found here

‍- Diana Award Crisis Messenger Service: Text DA to 85258 or click here for more information.
- LGBT FOUNDATION
- LGBT Switchboard
- SupportLine
- MIND