International Pronouns Day resources for schools
Education
International Pronouns Day takes place on the third Wednesday of October every year. This year, it’s happening on 16 October.
Gendered pronouns are of course something that exist in many languages around the world.
For trans people and their allies, the day can be a chance to reflect on the importance of respecting others’ pronouns and usuallising introducing yourself with yours.
At Just Like Us, part of our work is ensuring trans young people can thrive in school. Currently, many don’t feel safe in school. Our Growing Up LGBT+ report found that 54% of trans school pupils have been bullied in the past year.
Learning about pronouns and how they’re used across different contexts and languages can help usualise an important conversation, helping to build trans allyship.
We have free educational resources available on pronouns that you can use to mark International Pronouns Day.
Free school resources for International Pronouns Day
What are pronouns?
Our KS2 Modern Foreign Language (MFL) lesson plan and presentation slides explore the different types of pronouns, including personal, possessive and reflexive. The primary lesson looks at well-known figures familiar to young people and identifies their pronouns with examples. It also gives pupils the opportunity to explore gendered as well as gender neutral pronouns that exist in other languages, such as Swedish, German, French, Spanish and Chinese. The lesson includes a follow-on activity where pupils create a poster about different pronouns around the world.
As always, our school resources are free to UK teachers and are ready-to-use. So, there’s no preparation required. Just sign up to download them.
International Pronouns Day
Our International Pronouns Day activity for secondary pupils. It’s all about understanding and respecting pronouns with a creative activity designing badges and posters. The resources help young people to use their voice and explore why pronouns matter to them.
It’s designed to be used as part of our Pride Groups programme, which secondary school teachers can join for free.
Happy International Pronouns Day!