In Conversation with Range High School Inclusion Club

This week on the Comics Youth x Where are the Girlbands Safe Spaces Podcast, Ella had the joy of speaking to students from the Range High School Inclusion Club. The Inclusion Club is a space where students across year groups can meet, chat and create in a safe community space. The students give their insights on why spaces such as the Inclusion Club are so important, and ways in which schools can support their LGBTQ* students.

Hello and welcome to  the Comics Youth x Where are the Girlbands Safe Spaces podcast, a space for discussions with organisations and individuals who are creating safe spaces within the North West, with a focus on Merseyside.

One thing that has been said over and over again by our guests is that in order to make Merseyside a safer space we need to start with education. Many people, especially those of marginalised genders, associate school with being an unsafe space with prejudice coming from both peers and staff alike. One school who are doing amazing things to combat this feeling of a lack of safety and community is Range High, a school in Formby who have formed an Inclusion Club where its students can meet, chat and create in a safe community space. I have had the pleasure of hosting workshops at the Inclusion Club with Comics Youth upon invitation from the school and both times myself and the staff members I attended with were extremely moved by such a space existing within a school, a space which, had we been a part of during our time in school, could have changed our lives for the better and helped us find the support and community that we desperately needed. There is no word to describe my experience of visiting the club other than Queer joy in seeing the students excitedly sharing their thoughts on Queer culture, drag, activism and more.

I am lucky enough to be chatting today to a few members of the Inclusion Club as well as Caroline Longdon, one of the wonderful teachers who is facilitating this really important space.

Interview:

Ella:

How are you all doing today?

Inclusion Club members:

Yeah good!

Ella:

Amazing. I’d love to hear first of all in your own words what the Inclusion Club is.

Inclusion Club members:

Yeah so it’s sort of like a safe space for anyone sort of around the school.

Yeah it’s a space where we all just sort of come together and talk about inclusion and how we can make our school more inclusive for everyone, yeah.

A safe space.

Ella:

Amazing. What sort of stuff would you say that you usually do in Inclusion Club?

Inclusion Club members:

We mainly do like drawing, listening to music and it’s basically we have it on a Friday lunchtime, that’s kind of when everyone’s in the most happy mood because, you know, school’s nearly finished. So, erm, we usually do, like, we put on like music which is just nice, we have our own collection, we do drawings, we just talk about how our weeks’ been generally and like erm what’s going on in our lives.

Yeah and we’ll sometimes have people get up and do the odd presentation about something that they’re quite passionate about.

Ella:

Amazing. Why do you think having a safe space like the Inclusion Club in school is so important?

Inclusion Club members:

Yeah I think it’s also quite important for the younger years to know that there’s issues going throughout all of the school and it’s not just them, and that the whole of the school is with them and we’re going to help them through things.

Ella:

Yeah that’s really lovely. It’s actually one of the questions that I’d written is that something that stood out to me when I’ve come and visited is that it’s across year groups and I know when I was in school something that really helped me with my journey to coming out and self-acceptance was seeing older Queer people in school who were, you know, accepting of themselves and who’d come out and you know like you said gave that safe space to let the younger ones know that like everyone’s sort of in it together and everyone’s facing the same challenges.

Inclusion Club members:

Yeah definitely.

I think especially because like, you know we’re like the oldest who go to the Inclusion Club, there’s people who have been out a lot longer than we have, like, in like younger years. So it’s very good to like talk across years.

Like different age groups like and their different perspectives.

Ella:

That’s lovely how I guess you as, you know, the older ones can sort of learn from the younger ones as well about their journeys to acceptance and stuff too. Do you like maybe other schools could learn from the example your school’s setting by having a safe space like this one?

Inclusion Club members:

Yeah most definitely. Like, because I know lots of people from other schools who like don’t even have any sort of recognition of like LGBTQ*, like racial stuff, like it’s just completely blank in their school. And even in Liverpool there was the big billboards, it says like ‘start an Inclusion Club in your school today’ which, yeah, so and I was like wow they’re literally saying like big cities like do it now.

Ella:

Yeah I’ve definitely got to say with my experience in school there was never anything like this and it’s so you know it’s quite emotional for me actually coming and visiting and seeing you thriving and talking about the things that you’re passionate about. If you had a conversation with another school board and they were interested in making their school feel like a safer space for their young people what would you suggest to them that they could do to make people feel safer in their schools?

Inclusion Club members:

I’d say maybe having like a room that is a specific safe space. So this is our one, room 62, and I think having a space where like, I don’t know, it’s a nice environment to be able to like come to.

Miss. Longdon here, her son is Trans* and so she’s really good to talk to about these kind of things. I think it’s much better if someone has personal experience with these issues.

Ella:

Definitely. Does anyone else have anything else that they’d like to share about things that maybe like schools and teachers can do to help people feel safe?

Inclusion Club member:

I think that to make students feel safe I think that teachers should normalise having more lessons about it. Lessons about pride month when it’s not June.

Mmm.

And I also feel like, this is just more recently actually, people don’t understand terms as well as they do. I feel like this is one recently; AIDs is thrown around so much in my year and it’s like “it’s just a funny word’, it’s really not. I think people, like teachers need to realise, like “oh, it’s just a bit of banter”, some teachers say like oh stop, I think it needs to be more serious than that. Like zero tolerance it says, but I don’t think it’s carried out most of the time.

Yeah I do think it’s important that the teachers are educated first and foremost on it so they can step in and recognise when something is happening so that they can put a stop to it.

Ella:

Yeah, that’s really great I think you know what you’ve said there’s really important that it’s not enough to just stop it, the teachers need to know why they’re stopping it and to be able to educate people as to why they shouldn’t say those things and what those things mean and the weight of the words that people are throwing around. It’s not just about educating the pupils it’s about educating staff as well, and that staff need to be educated and taking the time to educate themselves and each other. So thank you for sharing that, that’s really helpful.

Would you have any ideas of things for yourselves that would help where you live and Merseyside in general to feel like a safer space inside as well as outside of school?

Inclusion Club members:

I think maybe some sort of like, maybe like a symbol or something on certain buildings that show that that’s like a safe area for people, that’d be quite good, to know you’re in a safe space.

Ella:

I guess on the flip side of that as well, are there anything’s that like, I know you spoke about having a room and you know maybe having a space to talk to each other. Are there any places or any things that have been done in school or even outside of school that you’ve thoughts that’s really worked and that’s really made me feel safe and included?

Inclusion Club members:

I went to a LIPA open evening a few months ago and they were talking about the badges they have with people’s pronouns on for people who are Trans* or Queer people.

Me and Sophie have prepared a presentation to the teachers that we’re going to be doing to educate the teachers on LGBTQ* issues. It’s not happened yet but it’s, it’s in the planning and I feel like that’s something which really, once it has gone through, is going to be really helpful for people to know that the teachers have been sat down and told what they can do and why things are unacceptable. I feel like that will help people feel a lot more comfortable.

Yeah and I went to a school open evening kind of thing quite a few weeks ago, and on their boards they had like cartoons, stuff in the media that kind of represents Queer people in a positive way, and it felt quite comforting to me because I knew those cartoons I knew those shows.

Ella:

Amazing. I sort of want to go back to what you were saying about you teaching the teachers. Having that young-person-led teaching experience is really important too because obviously like you all know what you need to feel safe. You know about your community and the needs of your peers, and so in school you have a lot of, you know, experiences where the teachers are teaching you and sharing their experiences with you but sometimes that needs to be flipped on its head and they need to listen and they need to learn as well, and there’s a lot of stuff which you can teach. So that’s fantastic to hear that you’re doing that and today as well you’re all so confident and you know what needs to be shared and what needs to be done, so thank you for sharing that knowledge with us as well.

I’d like to ask, maybe on a lighter note, some moments of joy that you’ve experienced in the Inclusion Club? Some like happy memories of your time in the Club?

Inclusion Club members:

I have one which, it sort of like ties in with Inclusion Club. We had our like talent show recently and I did drag for like the first time and it was really like just fun to do, and it was, it felt really scary at first because I thought oh gosh you know, this is going to be put in a newsletter, people are going to see me with a crinkly purple wig on. So I thought, well I was a part of Inclusion Club, because it was already going but it was very rare then we only had it once every second Friday.

It was online.

Yeah it was online. But when we came into room 62, I said it like really quickly I think I said like oh I did this, and it felt really nice to like say it without having worry of like being embarrassed about it.

I think when like the first time I came in we did like, it was just a small thing but we all had to get like a, what do you call it, like a label and put your name on it and say like your pronouns and that. It was just very nice to know that everyone is going to be recognised. It was a nice moment.

Yeah and it was nice that everyone was doing it, not just people who’ve changed their pronouns.

Also just generally, on a general note, I think it’s really nice for the year sevens to have this because from me like starting school, the school wasn’t as supportive.

Ella:

Thank you for sharing those memories with me, they’re so lovely and you know I wish when I’d been in school that someone had done drag in the talent show. Like absolutely unreal, like so iconic! I’m obsessed that you did that and even just that is such an amazing example to like younger people in the school who may be attending the talent show to know that people can express themselves that way and it will be celebrated. It’s an amazing thing. So well done to all of you as well because I think as much as the school’s doing a good job at making a safe space, I in a lot of ways it is you guys as young people who are making the safe space for other people in the school by being there for each other setting an example and creating this community where everyone is valued and seen and can be treated in the way that they want to be treated. Well done to all of you for creating such a safe space for each other, it’s really fantastic one.

I’d also like to know maybe if you’ve had any learning experiences as part of the Inclusion Club. If there’s anything that you’ve learned in your time here.

Inclusion Club members:

I’ve like learned so many new things. Like I’ll tell you know, before I think like year 8 was when, year 7 I sort of came out to everyone I was like new school and then I kind of went back after bullying happened, but I didn’t really know any of the other terms. I don’t think I even knew what pansexual was then. I didn’t know anything about transitioning but because I have now like got like so many more friends. Like Grace is Trans* and I had no idea like about like people may transition and Grace told me all about that which is really interesting. And then like from Ash I learned so many new like sexualities and I learned like what’s tolerant to say and what’s not because even I’m like LGBTQ* and I don’t know most of the things but it’s really helped.

Yeah and I think people doing their presentations about the things they’re passionate about, they’ve really helped I think for everyone to widen what they know.

Ella:

Amazing. It’s so lovely to hear like how you’re learning from each other and, you know, it’s like such, such a lovely space and such a sharing space as well.

My last question for you all is what do you want to do more of in the future with Inclusion Club?

Inclusion Club members:

Make it more. (laughing)

Yeah like more often. Like every day.

I’d kind of like to learn. Like I don’t know. I’m obviously not like a dictionary I don’t know like every single term in like the whole LGBTQ* world. But I’d quite like to learn about more of those, because I’m not sure like I don’t know many properly.

I think it would be good if because, I know most people, they don’t, I think they thing oh it’s only for gay people, only gay people can go to that club, but it’s just an Inclusion Club in general. I think we need to make it more like oh even if you’re just like want to have some fun, you’re just curious about it, come along it’s for everyone. Like I want to make it more open to everyone else.

Yeah we want to educate people outside of our community, not just us.

I think also like we’ve been doing like some art around the school and trying to prepare that, so I think get some more artwork up that’s more inclusive. I think it would be nice to try and get more of that up.

Ella:

Amazing! Well thank you all for talking with me today you’ve all been absolutely fantastic. Are there any last like comments or things you’d like to share with us before we close up the interview?

Inclusion Club members:

It’s cool to be gay (laughing)

I thought this was quite a good space to like express myself properly, because I don’t really, I can’t really show that much around school.

Yeah I think I’d just, I’d just like to say that we’re very thankful that we do have this community and we’re very thankful to Miss –

Yeah thank you Miss. Longdon.

For allowing us to come into her room and being so accepting of everyone in here.

Ella:

That’s so lovely, well thank you very much!

A massive thank you to the fantastic young people from the Range High Inclusion Club for chatting with us about the safe space their school and themselves as young people have made to celebrate, educate and include everyone.

I think some of the key learning moments for schools to think about are that having around their communities and their experiences and having that cross-year safe space is so important to create a sense of solidarity and peer-learning from across the school.

Song of the Week: Kalima - Cherry Red

Our song of the week is Cherry Red by Kalima, a song which brings me a tonne of joy. For me this song feels like sunshine, picnics and long walks home in the summertime and so I thought it would be a lovely match for an episode that is so celebratory in nature! I hope you enjoy.

We are Ella and Eve from Where are the Girlbands working in collaboration with Comics Youth to bring you interviews with local organisations and individuals who create safe spaces. You can find us on Instagram as @wherearethegirlbands where we celebrate women in music and discuss how to make local music scenes more accessible for everyone through reviews, video series, interviews and events! You can find more about Comics Youth on Instagram at @comicsyouth or via the website comicsyouth.co.uk. Comics Youth is a  youth led organisation that aims to empower youth across the Liverpool City Region to flourish from the margins of society, creating safe spaces where young people can harness their own narratives and find confidence within a creative community. Comics Youth provide a range of creative services designed to support and amplify the often diminished voices of young people, from zine creation to youth led publishing hubs and projects such as this podcast which highlights the voices of those working within our community to create safe spaces! Thanks for listening.