Here at Keith Grammar School, we are working towards the LGBT Youth Scotland Charter Award. We will use this page to share our progress towards achieving the Silver Award.
You can also follow our progress on Twitter @KGSLGBT
Our Progress
EqualiTEA Party – 9th December 2022
As of the start of Term 2, The LGBT+ club champion leaders have been meeting every month to discuss and organise campaigns around the school. We are working towards the LGBT+ School Charter Silver Award to help make the school more LGBT+ aware. As a part of that we have organised talks to classes and the two teachers that run it with us have done training with the other staff of the school. All this combined is helping us to make our school a safe and comfortable space for LGBT youth.
As a part of this Charter Award we had to host a fundraiser to spread awareness and raise some money for the group. We decided to have a tea party, which we called “Equali-Tea”. After agreeing to host it on the December 9th at break time, we started to brainstorm ideas for what we could do. We settled on a dress as you please with an extended break. We had six stalls in the hall and set up tables at the back for people to enjoy tea and cakes. Our stalls were: a library stall showing off LGBT books that we have at school, a match the lgbt landmark to the country, a colour your own flag station, match the flag to the sexuality/gender, guess the LGBT celebrity, and an LGBT decorated tea and cake stall (with help contributed from the HE department!!) And then we set off!!
On the day we arrived at a colourful school of pupils all dressed in their brightest clothes. Once in the hall we spotted our KGS LGBT+ banner that we held at the Moray Pride March hung up on the wall. In our first class, the teachers were given a match the sexuality/gender presentation to the definition, so everyone is learning about the LGBT community! As the break time bell rang, I went to the hall with my friends and sat at my stall (the best stall!). I had a bunch of teachers and pupils attempt to match the landmarks to the country, and many won points for their houses!
I don’t know about anyone else, but I absolutely loved doing the tea party, it was such a lovely idea. I loved walking into the school and having pupils I’ve never talked to before come and participate and have fun. It was a blast and I’m so thankful for everyone that came and helped behind the scenes. So a big thank you to Mr Leitch for supplying us with the books for our library stall. Thanks to Mrs Young, Miss Stewart and all the pupils who helped make the delicious cakes. Thank you to all the teachers and pupils who came along to support the tea party.
And for what we’re going to be doing next? Your just gonna have to keep an eye out!!!
Moray Pride – 3rd September 2022
KGS has a LGBTQ+ group that meet up every Tuesday to do activities, make friends and all over celebrate a broad range of sexualities and genders. The group aims to remove the stigma around LGBT issues and want to create a safe space for queer youths around the school to come together. While I myself wasn’t able to manage to attend the group i still kept in great contact with the members and teachers apart of the group, loving the welcoming-ness of the group.
Once Moray pride was advertised, I knew straight away I wanted to go, I was planning on going with either my cousin or my friends but got a great offer. One of the Teachers that led the group offered me a ticket to go, she told me to spread the word through my friend group that spaces were available for a school trip to pride moray. I was delighted to be asked to go and ran straight to my friends who were all also very interested. We all collected permission slips and were set.
The parade was on Saturday the 3rd of September and it would be the first pride that moray held, myself and 5 other pupils attended with the school while a lot of my friends went with a different club we all found each other before the parade during all the speeches, we obviously got our photos taken and were all listening intently to everything the speakers were saying. Massive smiles on everyone’s faces, we set off.
Holding our KGS Pride banner we all joined the march and head off, colour everywhere and joy everywhere it was the most amazing atmosphere. We began walking from the St Giles centre to Cooper Park. As I walked I felt so welcome, being around people I can relate to and with the group felt a sense of belonging. It was an amazing experience I will never forget.
The rest of the evening was spent visiting stalls, meeting new people and watching the acts. There was a range of showcases from karate to spice girls, with some wonderful acts in between. Lots of things for the crowd to participate in such as a dog show, and Morays next drag queen. I managed to see lots of old friends and had a blast.
Pride was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had and I cannot wait to (hopefully) go next year.
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