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The School Council had an amazing afternoon visiting the Houses of Parliament in Westminster.
Firstly we had a guided tour and saw both the House of Commons and the House of Lords sitting and debating various issues. We heard Jeremy Corbyn MP highlighting why the NHS should stay available to all and not be privatised. We then stood in the Great Hall where the Queen's body laid in state and where President Zelensky recently addressed Parliament. Back in the Education Centre, we watched a video about how the suffragettes fought hard for women to have the vote and we learnt a lot more about the long history of Parliament. The video was on three walls so it was very interactive. We learnt about democracy and debating before working in small groups on a campaign that was important to us. It was a pretty full itinerary and we certainly have some budding members of parliament on our School Council! As part of the 'Let’s Connect' theme for this year's Children’s Mental Week, our School Council visited some of our elderly friends at Bentley Court.
The children brought with them cards they had made showing what they enjoy doing to start the conversations flowing. They found out lots of interesting things about each other, including things they had in common! It was a wonderful afternoon mixing young and old and bringing a smile to everyone’s faces.
Children in Year 1 and Year 2 took a trip to the Royal Festival Hall to take part in an interactive concert inspired by Anna Llenas' book "The Colour Monster".
The Colour Monster is all mixed up! He finds it very confusing. He’s feeling yellow, blue, red, black and green all at once. In the book, his friend (the narrator) helps him to identify each of his feelings and untangle them, placing each one in a special jar to study more closely. She suggests how positive emotions make you feel, and ways to help out people (or monsters) with negative emotions. Once the feelings have been separated, the Colour Monster feels something altogether different… The London Philharmonic Orchestra played different pieces of music linked to the different emotions felt by the Colour Monster: happiness, sadness, anger, calm and fear. Before the concert children created their own artwork based on these themes and colours, and they were delighted to see their artwork displayed on a giant screen during the concert. We’re proud to be supporting Place 2 Be's Children's Mental Health Week (6-12 February), helping to shine a light on the importance of children and young people’s #mentalhealth.
We will take part in a variety of activities throughout the week to encourage children (and adults) to connect with others in healthy, rewarding and meaningful ways. We started off the week with some mindful beading in the Community Hub , and some smiley stickers to cheer us all up! Find out more here: childrensmentalhealthweek.org.uk. Congratulations to our young sports stars in Year 1 and Year 2, as they travelled to Sydenham School for an exciting Multiskills event. Competing alongside children from other Lewisham Primary Schools, our children performed amazingly across a variety of running, jumping, throwing and team events. We were delighted to welcome our local Community Police Officers to our school. They brought their police car with them and the children enjoyed getting to know the Officers and learning about how they can help us. St Mary's celebrated the Year of the Rabbit with wonderful support from our families from our Chinese community. A group of parents kindly prepared a wide range of delicious home-cooked Chinese dishes, which were enjoyed by all of the children (and staff!). The parents also led Chinese craft workshops as the children learned calligraphy, lantern making and paper design. Many thanks to Mr Scrivens, Miss Dikule and Mr Parchment who created a wonderful Chinese dragon. Every class took part in a Dragon Dance lesson, the children loved to learn a new dance technique! |
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St Mary's Lewisham CE Primary School - 329 Lewisham High Street - London - SE13 6NX
Tel: 020 8690 2613 email: [email protected] |
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