Summer 2022 – Peer Mentors
These 8 children have been working super hard to complete training to become our peer mentors. Their main job in school is to look out for their peers, offer support/advice and mainly have fun! They will have many responsibilities such as setting up games at break/lunch time, monitoring areas on the playground and chatting to other children.
June 2022
The Mini Police spent the afternoon with our local PCSO – Tom – learning about the topic of hate crime and then taking part in a community speed watch.
May 2022 – The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee
The whole school had a lovely day celebrating the Queen’s Platinum jubilee.
The children all looked fabulous in their fancy clothes.
Each class completed some different activities e.g.
artwork linked to the Queen, biographies about the Queen and poetry.
Then we all had a massive street party in the playground.
Thanks very much for all of the food donations!
May 2022 – Mental Health Awareness Week
Children have learnt many things: words that describe loneliness,
how to help people feel less lonely, how to tell if someone might be feeling lonely and what other help is available. Year 3 came up with a brilliant idea and decided to write letters to elderly people in a care home. EYFS looked at the story ‘We’re Going On A Bear Hunt’ and came up with ideas of how to help the bear when he was all alone.
April 2022 – Winnie the Pooh Wellbeing Week
The whole school took part in Winnie the Pooh Wellbeing Week. Most classes thought about how they could try to cheer up Eeyore and wrote him a letter with their suggestions. Ms Griffiths then collected all of our work together to make this beautiful display!
March 2022 – Parliament Assembly
Children in KS2 had an assembly with Gillian from Parliament Education. They showed a great understanding of the purpose of Parliament and how law making works.March 2022 – Ambassadors Community Survey
Our Ambassadors for Community Change recently created a Crime Survey. Working with Durham’s Police and Crime Commissioner, Joy Allen, the Ambassadors created the survey which was then completed by pupils in years 5, 6 and 7 from all the other schools in Ferryhill. This gives a picture of children and young people’s perception and experience of growing up here. The children will be using the information to inform the work they are doing in the local community.February 2022 – Wellbeing Leaders
Our Wellbeing Leaders from Y6 did a great job with their activity for children from years 4 and 5. The children produced some beautiful rainbow pictures and then tried to see which items they could find in the colours that the leaders shouted out. It’s been great to see the Wellbeing Leaders grow in confidence when explaining their activities to others.February 2022 – Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week
Each class completed activities related to children’s mental health and wellbeing. Here are some photos of Y2 learning some calming and relaxation exercises.January 2022 – Mini Police Walk
Our Mini Police took a walk around Ferryhill with our local PCSOs, putting up the posters they made regarding raising awareness of the perceived issues they see in Ferryhill, including littering and parking. They took them into a variety of local shops on the high street, asking business owners and workers if they were able to display their posters in store as they are “trying to make Ferryhill a better place”. A huge well done and thank you to the Mini Police and PCSO’s Aaron and Tom, who also let the children explore the police van to round off the visit.Dec 2021 – Stained Glass Window Competition
Congratulations to Astrid (Year 3) who is our winner of the stained glass window competition and the two runners up Brooke (Year 5) and Elsie (Year 2). You made some very creative stained glass windows.
The entries are now going to be sent to St Luke’s Church where they will be on display for everyone in the local community to see. Well done!
Nov 2021 – Y6 Fire Safety
Year 6 had a visit from the County Durham and Darlington Fire Service to learn more about fire safety.
They found out lots of fire safety tips to share with their parents and carers.
Nov 2021 – Meeting with Paul Howell, MP
Our Community Ambassadors really enjoyed meeting Paul Howell, MP, to end Parliament week. During Parliament Week, we had assemblies and classes did activities to learn more about the work of Parliament so it was great for our ambassadors to get the chance to ask an MP about his work.
Nov 2021 – Ambassadors for Community Change Speed Watch
Did you see our Ambassadors for Community Change on their Speed Watch? All drivers that were over the speed limit will be receiving a letter from the police.
Well done Ambassadors for another great job.
Nov 2021 – PCSO visit to Y1
PCSO Aaron visited Y1 as children had been talking about the police. The children asked him questions, tried on police uniform and did a fingerprint activity using the special police ink.
Autumn 2021 – Y5 Mini Police
Our Mini Police from Year 5 have done a fantastic job of supporting different aspects of school life in the autumn term.
They have also worked with the local PCSOs to support the wider community.
Oct 2021 – Y2 Durham Cathedral Visit
Y2 had a brilliant time at Durham Cathedral. The children were amazed by the size of the building and the ancient stonework and objects inside.
They also enjoyed a walk to see the River Wear and along the cobbled roads near the Cathedral.
Oct 2021 – World Mental Health Day
Oct 2021 – Harvest Foodbank Collection
For Harvest, each class collected items for the local foodbank.
Oct 2021 – Meeting Police and Crime Commissioner, Joy Allen
Durham PCC, Joy Allen, had a great visit to Dean Bank where she met with our Ambassadors for Community Change. They asked other children what makes you happy and healthy, which was playing outside and what issues they had in their local areas. The group discussed their concerns with Joy and they developed a list of priorities and way to address these.
Make a Difference challenge
Each year, one or two classes take part in a Make a Difference challenge project, through the Young Citizens charity https://www.youngcitizens.org/. This is a child-led project where the children take part in democratic decisions to choose a community cause they wish to make a difference to, carry out research into the topic and plan how to make a difference as a class. In our school, this has previously involved an anti-litter campaign, supporting the elderly, improving our local environment and a project to save the bees.
A survey completed before and after a project showed an impressive improvement in pupil attitudes to a number of areas of SMSC including:
- I think I should help make our community a better place.
- If a problem comes along, I believe I can find a way to solve it.
- I think I can help make our community a better place.
- If others have different ideas from me, I respect that.
- I know how to find out what people in my community think about things.
It also helped children to develop more confidence in other aspects of learning with all of these scores increasing greatly:
- I am able to write a letter to an important person.
- I know how to decide which ideas are best.
- I am able to speak confidently in front of my whole school in assembly.
- If I don’t know much about a topic I know how to find out more.
Look out for information about which causes our Y3 and Y5 classes will be supporting this year.