Courageous Advocacy
At St Andrew’s C of E Primary School, we want to support and inspire our children to become courageous advocates, to support others and be their champion when others are not there to do so. Courage, one of our Christian values is needed to do this and we hope it leads to making a difference to those who need the support Jesus shows us he gave others in the Bible.
At some point in life we will all face challenges and need support to help us overcome a barrier. We teach our children that is important to help others regardless of where they come from or what their challenges are. We teach this in many ways; through our work on values, by links to the Bible, other faiths and world views as well as learning about other courageous advocates. We want our children to have confidence to discuss these parts of our world and to challenge injustice and engage in activities that can bring about change on some level.
'The Journey' By Francesca Sanna
St Andrew’s was happy to welcome new people to our community in January 2023. These people had already had a difficult time finding a place of safety, when their home was no longer a safe place to be or live. Many people didn’t speak English and most had never been to a school before. They very quickly became our friends and we started to learn about the difficult journeys they had made. We were upset to hear how hard things had been for them and so set out to try and make a difference to support them.
Our local church as well as staff and families connected to school all help a lot. Donations of clothes and Christmas gifts were made. Children made festive cards to send before they started school and to welcome them to our community.
As a school we had an English lesson focus on the book 'The Journey' By Francesca Sanna. The children had some brilliant ideas, thoughts and discussions and produced some lovely work. In KS2 they decided they wanted to make a difference to support their new friends.
In school LKS2 worked together to create a book. The children noticed that many of our new friends couldn’t speak, read or write English. The books were too difficult to understand and enjoy. The children had an idea of making a book with just pictures, illustrated by them, that new friends could enjoy. The book told the story of St Andrew so they understood a little about the man who inspired our school name.
In UKS2, children were inspired by Shakespeare. Over 400 years ago he wrote a moving speech to make people stop, think and reflect on how they were treating refugees who had escaped danger and made dangerous journeys to London. The words seemed so relevant to what was still happening now and happening to our friends. You can hear the speech here:
The children decided to write their own speech, bring Shakespeare’s words up to date to support and remind people that humanity is important and that although we may look and sound different, we are all humans and that kindness is an international language. We hope you enjoy readying their work.
Eco Warriors
Each class at St Andrew's has an elected Eco-Warrior. They do lots of working in our school and local community to raise the profile of climate change and the importance of looking after God's creation. They work with Miss Thurgood to plan in ways to fundraise and help out. One good example of this is that their fundraising led to us all having new bins in our classroom so we can ensure St Andrew's recycles as well as walk to school week to stop pollution on the roads around our school.
More recently, we have been working with North Weald Parish Council to plant a new woodland on North Weald common. The woodland is now named after the school and has trees linked to our class names. The children went to help plant the woodland and go to visit to look after it. We were very proud that the St Andrew's Eco Warriors won the 'Young Citizen' award and the 'Citizens of the year' award at the North Weald Parish Council Awards.
Epping Forest Food Bank
Every year we hold our annual Harvest Festival at St Andrew's Church. As a school we collect food for our local food bank. We are always proud to be known for our generous donations to those who need a helping hand. We are inspired by God's message in the Bible to play our part and help those who need support. The work didn't stop with collecting the donations. Our older worship leaders went to take the donations down to the foodbank to see what actually happens and the people that the food bank support. The children spent time unloading the donations and helping to sort them and support the charity with their very important work. Thank you to all the parents who support us each year by providing a donation.
"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all
who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy."
(Proverbs 31: 8-9)