Great Big Live Assembly: Black History Month 2024 (Secondary Schools)

This is an invitation to all secondary schools to join us for a special assembly to celebrate Black History Month!

After a challenging summer where many people of colour were made to feel unsafe and unwelcome in their own towns, it is more important than ever to come together to promote and celebrate diversity.

We will explore ways we can feel safe and welcome wherever we are from and whatever we look like.Our fast-paced, age-appropriate 20 minute Great Big Live Assembly for Black History Month will feature:

– BAFTA-nominated Children’s BBC presenter Gemma Hunt, BAFTA-winning 12 year old presenter Jeriah Kibusi and award-winning diversity author Dr Krish Kandiah OBE who will be hosting this exciting event.

– inspirational input from black personalities and influencers
– focus on this year’s Black History Month theme: “Honouring Heroes”
– opportunities for students to be inspired by Black leaders from around the world.
– opportunity to ask questions of the panellists and learn about practical things to help make a difference in your communities.

The assemblies will be streamed live on Youtube. It works best if schools are able to join us live, but if you sign up we will send you a link to watch on catch up later if needed. A special schools resource pack will be emailed out following registration. Only one ticket is needed per school as your link can be shared with other class teachers.

We hope you will join us for this special event. This fast moving assembly is suitable for children from both primary and secondary schools.

Dr Krish Kandiah

Dr Krish Kandiah is a social entrepreneur with a vision to help solve some of society’s seemingly intractable problems through building partnerships across civil society, faith communities, government and philanthropy. He led the Afghan Welcome and UKHK initiatives which have worked with government and civil society to welcome newcomers from Afghanistan and Hong Kong to the UK. He is the director of Sanctuary Foundation, a foster carer, a host in the Homes for Ukraine scheme and sits on the government’s Core Delivery Group. He is the author of over 15 books, including two welcome books for resettled Hong Kong and Ukrainian children.

Gemma Hunt

Gemma has been working in TV since 2003 when she graduated with her First Class Media Performance Degree from The University of Bedfordshire. Gemma started working exclusively for CBBC in July 2003 before going freelance in 2007. 2013 saw Gemma join the CBeebies family on BAFTA award winning pirate gameshow ‘Swashbuckle’. Gemma also presents ‘Together’ – a BBC Learning School Radio show downloadable for school assemblies.

You can see Gemma presenting live at Festivals around the UK, including Big Church Day Out. Also, from April 2016 Gemma is co-presenting the new Alpha Film Series for alpha.org. Gemma also runs workshops in presenting skills and enjoys working with children, leading storytelling sessions and birthday parties. In 2017 Gemma was hugely honoured to be nominated in the “Presenter” category at the Children’s BAFTA’S.

Jeriah Kibusi

Jeriah is BAFTA’s very first Young Presenter to win the 10-14 competition category. Since becoming a BAFTA Young Presenter in 2022, Jeriah has interviewed cast and creatives behind Nickelodeon’s Transformers: EarthSpark and interviewed on the red carpet of the BAFTA Children and Young People Awards And TV Awards. Jeriah is also a regular reporter on Sky Kids’ FYI and has appeared in Sky Kids’ Original series Ama’s Story.