Active Citizenship

One of our whole school priorities this year is to develop citizenship within the school community. This includes children, staff, governors, parents and carers – all of us!

At the beginning of the school year, children were introduced to what it means to be an active citizen in assembly. Being an active citizen means getting involved in your community, in big ways and small ways, to make a positive difference whether that’s through volunteering, raising awareness, taking action, helping others, working together or a mixture of them all. 

Since then, active citizenship has really been flourishing as you can see by some of the examples below!

Save The Children Gaza Appeal Fundraiser

In November, a group of children in Year 5 came to see Ms Lotriet. They were all aware of the conflict in Israel and Gaza and wanted to do something to help. They had also been learning about the purpose of charitable organisations in RE lessons and asked if it was possible that school could fund raise. They were set a challenge to find a charity that we could support.

Together, we looked at several charities and the children decided they wanted to support Save The Children’s Gaza Emergency Appeal and organised a non-uniform day, which also included writing to parents and sharing it with other children in assembly.

Their active citizenship raised over £400!

Mobile Library

Children in Year 6 wanted to provide opportunities for children to read at lunchtimes so have developed and run a mobile library. Their active citizenship strengthens the reading culture at Henwick and provides all children with a wider variety of choice at lunchtime.

Reading buddies

Children in Year 3 shared that they would like to read with younger children at lunchtimes. They arranged a meeting with Mrs Kelly-Webb, our EYFS leader, and organised for groups of them to read with children in Reception during their lunchtimes. The children in Reception really enjoyed reading with older children and the children in Year 3 got a lot form volunteering their time too!