RISK AND RESILIENCE

Thanks to our fantastic Year 2 class assembly, that idea of determination (our value this month) and resilience have been the topic of much conversation in school this week.

At our school, we are constantly trying to demonstrate and teach the concept of resilience. It is sometimes a tricky task with children, in our risk averse society. I think we sometimes forget that children have more resilience than we give them credit for - it just needs constant nourishing.

They encounter risks in every part of their lives, from riding a bike around the cemetary to jumping on a trampoline - and as parents, we weigh up those risks fairly quickly, instantaneously. As a school, we encourage our children to run, dig, carry, jump, experiment, try, fail, try again. We balance risk continually, through many different channels and the outcome is that our children leave us understanding the fine balance between risk and resilience. Risk of failure shouldn't ever become a barrier to children achieving, it's a marker on a longer journey, resilience is the armour we give them on this journey. This will form part of our Staff Inset on Friday - when school will be closed.

PE KIT

We are very proud to offer the wide range of sports and PE opportunities that we do at our school. Children, however, need to be prepared for these lessons. Unfortunately, we have an increasing number of children who file up outside the office to borrow PE kit, when they come to school without any. PE kits should be left in the school for the whole of a half term, marked with names, ready to use for the children's two designated slots. Children without PE kit are liable to incur a red mark for uniform on their reports, including those without the correct footwear.

DONATIONS

Next week, we will be acception donations for our harvest festival (to go to Food Banks) with Fulwell Methodist Church in school on Thursday. I hadn't realised that Sunderland is home to 10 separate food banks spread across the city. These provide emergency donations of three days food for families without any.  It is a sobering thought that in an age where items and objects have become so disposable, there are hundreds of families on our doorstep who rely on donations to feed themselves. I reminded the children of this very same fact, after seeing the amount of waste left over from our school dinners. Some of our children are throwing their whole dinner away or taking a bite out of a cup cake and disposing of it. I used the word "disgraceful" to sum up the waste and it is. Please talk to your child about their menu choices. Not only do we not want to see children refusing or throwing away meals that have been cooked from scratch, but when we are collecting food for those that haven't any - I wonder what they would think?