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 

Thinking ahead to COP 27 – when leaders will meet to discuss environmental issues – Year Six helped looked after our school environment by litter-picking, weeding the ‘bee highway’ and making the grounds more presentable. 

This week, we had a visit from the RNLI who reminded us how to stay safe on the beach and what flags and signs to look out for. In PSHE, we also thought about taking responsibility for our actions in the best interests of others. 

Today a small group worked with Miss Molteno to talk about United Nations and their goal of taking climate action. They also discussed how this impacts on them and their human rights (Article 12 the right to have a say and Article 24, the right to a clean and safe environment).

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Today Year 2 took part in a wonderful workshop all about the importance of recycling and not putting unnecessary waste in our big black bins. We listened to a visitor from Teignbridge recycling and sorted objects into the correct recycling bins. We have created posters to take home to remind us and our families to be super recyclers and look after our precious world! Article 24

St Michael’s have loved spending the day celebrating World Book Day today. Without the skill of reading we would not be able to access the amazing education we have a right to. 

   
 

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

Year 6 have been thinking about our environment and how humans harm our planet. We discussed ways that we can help to create a healthy environment and displayed this in posters and poems.

This week year 4 talked about climate change and the impact humans are having on the planet. We looked how our world is changing but also how we can fight back. In PSHE we designed logos of hope to remind ourselves that we can support change in a good way and we discussed the book ‘Varmints’ by Helen Ward in Guided Reading. In Varmints, a city is built, destroying the nature around it but a rabbit fights back and re introduces nature to the city. We wrote messages to our future selves.

   
   

Article 24- we have the right to a clean and safe environment.

Today we talked about COP26 and what it was.

We then thought about ways in which we can start to help our planet. We decided to design a bag for life. The pupil’s came up with some great designs.