\n<\/p>\n
O<\/span>n a bright wintry morning, Bradford\u2019s majestic 19th-century city hall is alive with children\u2019s laughter, chatter and songs. Sixty girls and boys are playing games and dancing in the banqueting suite, they\u2019re making art in the civic reception room and amid the grandeur of the council chamber, where key decisions about the future of their city are made, they are sharing their hopes and dreams.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to be a doctor,\u201d says one pupil from the tiered benches where the city\u2019s councillors sit. \u201cI want to be a doctor and<\/em> a teacher,\u201d says another. \u201cI want to be a pilot and a neurosurgeon,\u201d says a third. The children are also asked about their hopes for Bradford. \u201cThat we have our own snow leopard,\u201d was one rather magnificent recent response.<\/p>\n The year 4 children, aged eight or nine, are drawn from two Bradford primary schools that have been paired. They are taking part in a year-long programme of events organised by The Linking Network, a charity that brings together children from different faiths, cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds to have fun, learn together and get to know one another.<\/p>\n Set up after the Bradford civil disturbances of 2001, the charity \u2013 one of five charities supported through the Guardian\u2019s charity appeal, which has the theme of hope \u2013 aims to build relationships between children who might otherwise never have met. Their shared experience during the programme helps them explore identity, become comfortable with difference and build connections. When you see it in action, it just looks like children having fun.<\/p>\n <\/span>The charity aims to build relationships between children who might otherwise never have met.<\/span> Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n One class is from Horton Grange, a large primary school in the west of Bradford where 87% of pupils speak English as an additional language, almost one-third (32%) are eligible for free school meals and 0.4% are white British. The other class is from Hill Top, a small Church of England primary in the south of the city where 81% of children are white British, fewer than a fifth (19%) are eligible for free school meals and 3% speak English as an additional language.<\/p>\n Geographically their schools are not that far apart, but without The Linking Network these children were unlikely to have had an opportunity to get to know each other. This is the first time they have met face to face and Hill Top\u2019s headteacher, Julie Ball, is visibly moved by the encounter.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you look at them now, they\u2019re all joining in. They\u2019ve just met as complete strangers,\u201d she exclaims. \u201cThis will really benefit our children. They will get to know about other schools and other cultures.\u201d Later in the day, I catch her dabbing tears from her eyes. \u201cPeople in our country need to see this. [Children] don\u2019t see the differences.\u201d<\/p>\n A lot of careful groundwork has been done ahead of this meeting. At the start of the year, the children undertake work in their own classroom then meet online. In the video call between the two classes, one child\u2019s question broke the ice. \u201cI want to know, does anyone like chicken nuggets?\u201d<\/p>\n Their first face-to-face meeting ideally takes place in a neutral space \u2013 a theatre, museum or city hall \u2013 offering pupils a shared cultural learning experience. Then later in the year they visit each other\u2019s classrooms.<\/p>\n Nahida Nazir, the charity\u2019s primary advisory teacher, who is among those leading today\u2019s session, grew up in Bradford. \u201cI feel like I wasn\u2019t offered these opportunities,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was only when I went to university I was given the opportunity to mix with people from different backgrounds. Every primary school across the country needs to be doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n The charity also works with secondaries, special schools, faith and independent schools. Its work has expanded over the decades beyond Bradford to 26 local authorities in England, from Rochdale and Bury, Calderdale and Kirklees, to Bristol, Buckinghamshire and Kent. With additional funding, co-directors Linda Cowie and Meg Henry hope to expand further.<\/p>\n \u201cIt gives children the chance to see beyond the boundaries of their own experience. When they meet, share stories and learn together, they build empathy and understanding that lasts a lifetime,\u201d they say.<\/p>\n The bishop of Bradford, Toby Howarth, is the chair of trustees. \u201cFor me it\u2019s a gem,\u201d he says. \u201cI chair a number of trusts and this is my favourite. I leave every trustees\u2019 meeting feeling more hopeful, more joyous and profoundly moved. It\u2019s an emotional thing.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is about children meeting one another. These kids are growing up with a friend from another background. When they hear false narratives, they can say: \u2018But I know this person.\u2019 This is not fluffy. It\u2019s dealing with real issues.\u201d<\/p>\n By the end of the day, nerves have vanished and friendships have blossomed. \u201cI\u2019m sad because I don\u2019t want to leave him,\u201d says one little boy pointing at his new friend, as the time to leave draws near. Another pair of boys \u2013 one from Horton Grange, one from Hill Top \u2013 break dance together, two girls \u2013 one with a hijab, one without \u2013 can\u2019t stop smiling at each other, and two more are amazed to discover they both want to be paleontologists.<\/p>\n Kathryn Swales is headteacher of Girlington primary school, one of the two schools that began the school-linking project in 2001. \u201cEvery July, like many primaries, we have a leavers\u2019 assembly where children recount their most memorable experiences at primary school,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery year, without fail, children choose to talk about their experience of linking \u2013 of meeting children from our link school, the friendships they have made, the things they did together, the things they found out about each other. There is no greater testament to the programme than this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On a bright wintry morning, Bradford\u2019s majestic 19th-century city hall is alive with children\u2019s laughter, chatter and songs. Sixty girls and boys are playing games and dancing in the banqueting suite, they\u2019re making art in the civic reception room and amid the grandeur of the council chamber, where key decisions about the future of their<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[10541,7109,1554,2390,2280,20249,10688,588],"class_list":{"0":"post-36162","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-bradford","9":"tag-bridges","10":"tag-charity","11":"tag-empathy","12":"tag-gap","13":"tag-lasts","14":"tag-lifetime","15":"tag-schools"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}