Exercising their right to a say in issues that affect them, Year 4 are using their English lessons this week to write letters to Kingsteignton Council asking for support in bringing more swifts to our school area. Below is the letter written by Mrs Buff’s English class. Mrs Amey’s English class are working on theirs and will be able to share by the end of the week.

Dear Sir/Madam, 

As a Rights Respecting School, we have been learning about Article 24 which says that we have the right to a clean, healthy and happy environment. We therefore want to protect our environment for the future. We are writing to ask for a grant from the council to pay for more swift boxes in our school area. Please can we have more swift boxes, we don’t want to see the lovely swifts in our area going extinct. 

Swifts are in danger because they are losing their cosy, warm homes, food and water. Swifts often live in the rooves of people’s houses.  Their homes are disappearing because people block them off when they fix their rooves. This is bad because swifts will try over and over again to get their nests back and will eventually die trying even if they can’t get to it. 

Swifts are brilliant creatures because they help look after the environment. They keep insect numbers under control so that we are not overwhelmed with irritating insects. They also eat lots of insects that are troublesome to humans like mosquitos and aphids. There is a problem though- there are less and less insects than there used to be because humans are damaging their habitats and building on areas where they would thrive. This is the swift’s main source of food- they can collect up to 1000 insects at a time when feeding their babies so we must do more to help. 

We don’t want swifts to become extinct because they have been around since the dinosaurs- 65 million years ago (around the time when Tyrannosaurus Rex became extinct). During this time, nothing about the swifts has changed except where they live.  They used to nest in rocky caves and high trees, now they nest under the boards and rooves of houses. They made this change because we have been cutting down trees and blocking caves so that we can have more room for houses. This makes it harder for swifts to nest and causes more problems when they want to come back to the same nests every year. We don’t think it is fair that the swifts homes are being damaged for our houses.  

We can help solve this problem though by building more swift boxes high up so that the swifts can return every summer. We can build more ponds in our area, let grass grow longer and plant more flowers to provide the swifts with food, water and plenty of insects so they can nest, breed and live alongside humans. This would mean we would have more cute chicks and families of swifts will keep going for hundreds of years from now. 

We know you can help by providing us with a grant so we can build swift boxes in our school area. There are already lots of swifts living peacefully in St Michael’s Church and we want to encourage more to our area. We look forward to seeing what you write to us. 

Yours Faithfully,  

Year 4, 

St Michael’s Primary School 

Article 7- Every child has the right to a name and identity.

This month we are exploring Article 7 as our Right of the Month. Every child has the right to a name and to know where they belong. The whole school are using Arts week to look into this right in more detail through self portraits and Music work. Look out for pictures of our Art work over the next two weeks.

For further details about Article 7 visit the link below:

https://www.unicef.org/wca/nonamecampaign-every-child-legal-identity

Reception have been looking at this month’s Right, Every child has the right to practice the religion of their choice. We have looked at the Hindu festival of Diwali and explored the different ways that it is celebrated. We dressed up in saris, made rangoli patterns and tasted some Indian snacks. It was gret fun learning about a different religion. 

This month our Right of The Month is Article 17. Article 17 of the UNCRC says children and young people should be able to access information, particularly from the media. They should be able to get information from many places— from their country and beyond.

We have chosen this article to link with Safer Internet day which we are celebrating today.

You will see on your Google Classrooms there is a link to an assembly all about this. Here is the link if you haven’t been able to access this:

https://www.saferinternet.org.uk/safer-internet-day/safer-internet-day-2021/i-am-educator/work-7-11s/virtual-assembly-7-11s

Today the children showed their support for children in need by coming to school dressed in spots or yellow. They also took part in a fun Pudsey colouring competition and discussed the reasons why they were raising money and the important work Children in Need does.

This morning, our Rights Ambassadors presented all their hard work in our virtual assembly. They talked about all the things they have done to make positive changes in school and what they have done to respond to children’s views. They also announced their most recent project which has come from children’s requests in our Voice books- more playground equipment! We are therefore going to work with Earthwrights to build some amazing new equipment on the playground! Visit the website below to get an idea of what we are looking into. Also below are the achievements our Ambassadors have made over the last year, all based on pupil feedback and helping other children.

Home

We have raised £307 for Send a Cow!

Plastic art- We want you to design in your classes a piece of art work. We will then collect and recycle plastic from around school so we can make the winning art piece.

Hitts food bank- We have been collecting food and sending it to our local food bank to help local children and their families during this difficult time.

Shoe swap- We held a shoe swap and donated all our old shoes to children in Africa who are suffering.

Thanks to your crafty activities we collected over £150 for children around the world by selling your crafts. The money you raised is helping children affected by illness, poverty and flooding.

Windows, Mirrors, Doors- we have introduced a reflection time/area in to all classrooms so that children can celebrate and reflect upon the ows and wows in their lives.

Our ambassador, Poppy, wanted to plant trees to help the environment! We wrote to New Wood Trees and they have responded, agreeing to send us 13 trees (one for each class) to plant and care for.

What a busy year it has been!

Before half term the etrhos group met to discss the impact of our Rights Ambassadors and disucss how the different areas of our school are running during lockdown. We wanted to share the minutes with you all so you an see what is being discussed. We haope to have another meeting before the end of term.

Last week our learning grids went live so that we could continue to keep learning going and interact with our classes. The work that has been sent in so far has been amazing and we are really proud of the effort children have been putting in. Here are some examples of some research and some creative that has been done.

Now, more than ever, we think it’s important that children continue to understand their rights and how they are protected in our world. We are therefore posting activities based around a different right each week. You will be able to find them in your Google classroom. Feel free to dip in and out as you please but do please share anything you do with us as we would love to see what you come up with 🙂

We did some descriptive writing with the children in school today. They had a go at describing a particular part of their local area using adverbial phrases.