We were over the moon to welcome the Mayor, Mr Graham Warke, to Holy Child PS recently to officially open our new Forest School. The children had a brilliant time taking part in a full Forest day, they made bird feeders, planted flowers to take home and visited the Kidz Farm with their teachers. The children also had great fun with staff from Creggan Country Park, Karen organised a bug hunt, Sheila showed the children how to do willow weaving and finally the children worked with Majella the nature therapy facilitator.
Using the Forest School each day helps the children to grow in confidence because of the freedom, time, and space they are given in their learning. This allows them to demonstrate independence at each individual child's rate. Using daily planned activities devised by the class teacher the children learn to cope with and learn from failure, they gain a sense of achievement, and have improved problem solving abilities.
We are extremely grateful to Awards for All lottery funding who made this vital addition to the children’s learning possible.
We were also delighted on behalf of our staff, pupils and parents to presented the Mayor with a cheque for £400 for his charity - Foyle Down Syndrome Trust. This was raised on our Odd Socks Day, thank you to everyone for their generosity.
