Forest Hill School is an inclusive community comprising a diverse population of both students and staff and is committed to promoting and developing equality of opportunity in all aspects of school life.

The Pride Ambassadors Group comprises staff and students across the year groups and meets weekly to discuss issues affecting LGBTQ+ community members, and to carry out projects to increase visibility of LGBTQ+ matters. 

In September 2021, we achieved the prestigious Stonewall School Champion Gold award, which gives recognition to schools tackling homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying, and celebrating diversity. Under the refreshed award programme, which launched in March 2020, we are currently the only school in London with Stonewall Gold status – and one of only two secondary schools in the country, so this is a massive achievement!

FHS has been proud to hold a Stonewall Bronze award for three years and this has demonstrated our commitment to LGBTQ+ equality and inclusion. However, we have made lots of progress during this time, which included writing a Trans-inclusion policy, adapting the School Journey policy to be LGBTQ+ inclusive, collating LGBTQ+ inclusive lessons from across the curriculum, surveying staff and pupils, sharing our work with a range of other schools and much more! At FHS, we are wholly committed to continuing to improve our inclusion and celebration of LGBTQ+ people and identities. 

In order to achieve Gold, we needed to score at least 54 points out of a possible 70, and to get full marks in at least four out of six of the Gold standard best practice areas. FHS scored 68 points out of a possible 70, with full marks in all six of the Gold-standard best practice areas!

“Wow wow wow! Your curriculum work is SO impressive and is very comfortably at Gold level. The evidence you’ve submitted is very best practice…The range of subjects and key stages included in your evidence is impressive and it’s particularly wonderful to see how you thread LGBTQ+ inclusion through your curriculum and how you open up conversations about the intersections between different liberation movements for minority rights. I am blown away!” 

(Taken from Feedback Form)

The group has also worked hard to celebrate diversity in the school: they have created an equality banner which hangs in the atrium, LBGTQ+ displays in the library and corridors, and clearly marked ‘safe spaces’ for LGBTQ+ students. They celebrate LGBTQ+ history month with competitions, an LBGTQ+ film club and fundraising activities for LGBTQ+ charities.

The KS4 and staff ambassadors have walked in the London Pride parade, and ambassadors throughout the school attended a reward trip to Greenwich, which included a picnic and has led to involvement in a project with Royal Museums Greenwich, exploring gender representations.

The Pride Ambassadors Group (formerly the Equality Group) is also the proud winner of a Mayor of London’s Volunteering award in the Bringing Londoners Together category. On Monday 14 October 2019, they joined other individuals, teams and organisations who have made outstanding contributions to their London communities at the Chamber in City Hall, to collect their award.

“The students and staff who make up the Equality Group have worked incredibly hard to achieve this and we are extremely proud of them. It is also fantastic to see them getting the public recognition they deserve for all the phenomenal work they have done in making Forest Hill School the positive and inclusive community that it is.”

Michael Sullivan, Headteacher

Students wishing to join the Pride Ambassadors Group should speak to one of the following members of staff: Ms Suart, Ms Sparkes, Mr Cox, Mr Orsacek.