At St. Mary's we are very proud of our courageous advocacy campaigns with Lewisham Citizens which both parents and children have been part of.
The first win came in March 2022 following an extensive campaign by lots of schools and charities to allow Free School Meals for all families who have no recourse to public funds. A former pupil at this school and his mum attended an MPs briefing at Westminster with Mrs Tildesley to share their experiences and this was the catalyst to the announcement made by the government to allow all pupils FSM regardless of their parents' immigration status. The second win came in June 2022 - a concession from the government so that not all young children have to pay £1012 to become a British Citizen. Our children have been campaigning for the abolition of the fee for a number of years and even went to the Home Office some years ago to draw attention to this. You can read about the campaign below which includes a quote from one of our parents... https://www.citizensuk.org/about-us/news/news/citizens-uk-and-coram-childrens-legal-centre-celebrate-home-office-waiving-citizenship-fees-for-some-children/?fs=e&s=cl We are proud to be a Sanctuary School and we will continue to campaign for the right of everyone to be welcomed and treated with respect and dignity. Some of our parents and children went to Laurence House to meet up with the re-elected Mayor to remind him of the promises that he made around housing issues when he came to our school for the Lewisham Citizens Accountability Assembly in April.
Damien Egan promised that if he was re-elected he would work with us to improve conditions, care and communications for Lewisham residents. Together with representatives from lots of other organisations in Lewisham we congratulated the Mayor on his re-election by giving him some bunting to hang in his office. We also invited him to play a wordsearch game - some of the children from St Mary's helped him to find the words:
ENGAGE provided our parents with a lovely breakfast and a really useful workshop on wellbeing.
We learnt about the 5 ways of keeping well which include staying active, connecting with people and learning something new. Combine that with the 5 A's - affection, appreciation, acceptance, approval and attention and we have a recipe for wellbeing. What will you do to stay active or to learn something new? Have you thought about volunteering or giving your a bit of your time to help others? Importantly if we model looking after ourselves well our children will learn great skills for life too! ENGAGE is an organisation run by parents for parents in Lewisham and they will be returning for further workshops in the new academic year on Resilience and Choosing a Secondary School. A special worship was held for each class to share an update on their community projects. Children at St Mary's learn about Courageous Advocacy - how they can make a difference to their local, national and global communities. Nursery and Year 1 have been collecting donations for the homeless. Reception class have made links with local elderly people, including sending them Christmas cards. Year 2 have continued to develop the therapeutic garden at St Mary's Church whilst Year 3 have been running a foodbank collection scheme. Year 4 are planning a uniform sale and Year 5 continue to encourage recycling at School every week. Finally, Year 6 have been writing to the children in our Ghanaian link school as well as organising fundraising activities.
Year 6 organised a fundraising fair for each class to visit, as part of our Platinum Jubilee celebrations. Games included balloon pop, ball in the bucket, lucky dip, what's in the box, obstacle courses and a cake stall! All money raised will be sent to our link school in Ghana.
St Mary's school were proud to host over 150 Lewisham Citizens for an inspiring evening as they shared their experiences and challenged the Mayor of Lewisham, Damien Egan, and the Conservative Mayoral candidate, Caroline Attfield. The main themes were Housing and Immigration. Children from St Mary's Year 5 class were the stars as they emerged from a 'house' to share their thoughts and their vision for a fairer world. In partnership with Lewisham Citizens, St Mary's continue to encourage our children and parents to campaign and know that their voice will be heard.
Congratulations to our Year 3 class who have been collecting food donations to support those in need in our local community. Building on the success of our annual Harvest Collection, the children decided to make this an ongoing project, recognising that there are people in need throughout the year. Year 3 class have made posters and visited each class to encourage contributions. When their box was full up, a group of children took the food to St Mary's Church ready for distribution. The children will continue to welcome any donations of tinned or dried goods - please help if you can.
This was a lovely opportunity to bring together the parents of Year 1 for a chat and a chance to spend a bit of time with their child in school. It’s been a long time since we have been able to do this and we have really missed it! The children love to see their parents in school and to share a little of their day with them. As a school we really value parental engagement so thank you to all the parents who came in. Parental engagement is key to your child making good progress as it shows them you care and it lets the school know what it is doing well and what you as parents might like more of.
As you can see we have some budding bakers -watch out the Great British Bake Off! The children really enjoyed decorating their cakes and showing their parents how grown up they are in moving around the school so responsibly! Year 3 have started their own drop in club on a Monday lunchtime where they can get crafty and creative! So far they have created amazing glitter pictures, chatterboxes and last week they made these beautiful rainbow clouds! The children love trying out new skills. Do you have any old art or creative materials at home that you are no longer using? Pieces of material or old beads and buttons would be especially welcome for our crafty box of goodies!
In our listening survey with parents (2019) the overwhelming issue affecting our families was housing and since the pandemic this issue seems to be even more of a priority. Last term two meetings with parents were held in the community hub to share concerns and to start thinking about how we might start to make some changes in Lewisham.
Councillor Stephen Penfold came along as a guest to one of the meetings. He is a former housing solicitor and now also works with Lewisham Refugee and Migrant Network. He was moved by the stories shared and also concerned at the recurring themes about the way people were treated by the housing department and how hard it is to make contact with a named person especially since all the council offices have been closed to the public since March 2020. He has written on our behalf to the Cabinet Member for Lewisham Housing. In the meantime our wonderful parents put into words their wishes for Lewisham Housing..... If you have any housing issues please come and join us at our future meetings or contact Marta Tildesley for some help and advice. |
Community ProjectsFind out about the community projects we are working on Archives
May 2024
Categories |