UCL Supports St Bart’s Holocaust Programme

Last week, St Bart’s were very pleased to welcome to the school Mr Corey Sopher, Lecturer at UCL Centre for Holocaust Education. As previously reported in BartholoNews, St Bart’s have recently been awarded Beacon School status after a successful application to the flagship UCL programme, aimed at supporting to schools to committed to enhancing teaching and learning about the Holocaust. Mr Sopher’s visit was the first part of an ongoing programme of continuous professional development and consultancy provided by UCL, with the aim of supporting St Bart’s to become a hub of teaching excellence.

Mr Sopher met with a working group of St Bart’s teachers and support staff from a range of departments. The group first heard from Mr Owen, Sixth Form Leader and Beacon Programme Lead, about the rationale, need and ambition of the programme. Mr Owen spoke about the growing issue of Holocaust denial, distortion and trivialisation and the need to ask ‘what are schools doing to help tackle this trend?’ We then heard from Mr Sopher who shared some of the principles and priorities behind the project. He then delivered a powerful and affecting session which employed some of the approaches that teachers might adopt in their own lessons. Amongst other things, he highlighted for teachers how this challenging but important content might be received by learners. It was an intense but hugely valuable experience. Teachers left the session with renewed confidence and conviction about the importance of sharing knowledge of the holocaust with students.

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