Cranford Review / March_2018

2
Hounslow
SACRE
Annual RE Lecture
On
Thursday 9th November 2017 the Hounslow SACRE
annual RE lecture was delivered by local MP Ruth
Cadbury focussing on Community Cohesion in Hounslow. Being a
member of SACRE, I thought it would be of interest and relevance
to our youngsters and put out the word. Cranford’s 6th form students
made a really impressive impact.
They listened to Ruth talk with pride about Hounslow’s achievements,
that in terms of GCSE results Hounslow “punches well above its
weight.” She said Hounslow can be described as “hyper-diverse” with
different heritages linking together and there was no single majority
community, not even white British. 140 different languages were
spoken and 86% of children say they have a religious faith. These are
perhaps some of the reasons, Ruth postulated why the London Riots
of 2011 didn’t affect Hounslow. She did point out however, that a
number of challenges still face members of ethnic minorities living
in Hounslow, and in the UK more widely. Workplace discrimination
still exists, as does disparity in the admissions of ethnic minority
students to the top universities in the UK, something that wasn’t
actually the case in top American Universities such as Harvard and
Yale, who it seems do more to invest in ethnic minorities. The rise
in more overt xenophobia following the Brexit vote was discussed
and the negative consequences of it for all people.
When she opened up to the floor for a question and answer session it
was our students who led the way. Al-Enzeli Ramji pointed out that
having worked in Hammersmith for a few months, he felt a greater
sense of belonging than 17 years growing up in Hounslow had given
him. So how could Hounslow be more like Hammersmith? One
possible explanation, which Ruth proposed, was that the transient
population of Hounslow, with many people in rented accommodation
didn’t allow for community cohesion. Zala Amiri asked Ruth what
advice she would offer them, the young generation, on how to
contribute to society and gain recognition. Hopefully a question
posed by the RE teacher gave food for thought as it was asked if
Labour had a policy on raising the status of RE in some schools,
given it had been diminished somewhat by Conservative policies
in some schools locally and nationally, though thankfully not at
Cranford Community College. The students were there long after
others had left, engaged in conversations about local politics with
a local councillor.
Well done to the students for taking time in order to engage with
local politics and consider their part in making society a better place
for everyone.
Mehmoona Yousaf (Senior Teacher – SMSC)
The Battle of Ideas
During the October half term,
I attended some lectures at the
“The Battle of Ideas” weekend,
organised by the Institute of
Ideas. Two of the debates I
attended were, “Banter and
Besties: Is friendship in
peril?” and “All by myself: Is
loneliness a social problem?”
I was particularly interested
in these as I feel that these are
topics that really affect a lot of
people my age. I found “Banter
and Besties” really intriguing
as I didn’t realise that some
people actually want banter to
be banned from the work place.
I also didn’t realise that a large
number of men who work with
women feel like they have to
be careful with what they say.
It seems that the line between
banter and offensiveness has
become really slim. I was also
really fascinated about the
loneliness discussion because
it not only affects everyone at
some point in their life, but also
people have different ideas of
what loneliness is and handle
it differently. There were
some really insightful views
exchanged and I would highly
recommend others attending.
Kareena Suman (year 11)