Beacon School Status in Holocaust Education

Immanuel College has recently been awarded the status of a Beacon School in Holocaust Education. Following a year and a half partnership with University College London's Centre for Holocaust Education, including staff residentials, university to school mentoring and bespoke core professional development for teachers, we're delighted to be nationally recognised as a school leader in this incredibly important subject. As the only compulsory subject within the History National Curriculum, we taken great care in providing a sequence of lessons that puts the testimonies of the victims of Holocaust first, rehumanising stories the Nazis and their collaborators wished to extinguish. Our Year 9 students responded with great maturity and curiosity to this topic, challenging their own preconceptions of the Holocaust, appreciating that no two experiences are the same. They explored themes which included the complexity of complicity, Britain's response, historical fiction as a source of information about the past and whether justice was done. New to this year, students were taught how Lemkin's '8 stages of genocide' can be recognised within the Holocaust, making us alert to the possibility of genocides taking place today and how they can be prevented. We intend to attain the prestigious Quality Mark held by only 15 school nationally and continue our work with the Anne Frank Trust in recruiting students to become peer educators in Holocaust education.