Peace Week at BSM

With some children held back after assembly to visit classes, the rest of the school returned to their classrooms to prepare some fun activities to include dancing, games and art activities. However, the children were told that when the groups came to visit some classes could welcome them and let them join in, other classes were told they could let them in the room but not join in the activities and other classes were told not to let them in at all. As the children visited the different classrooms they discussed the different reactions and the feelings these attitudes generated. Once back in the assembly hall together, we discussed how it felt to be excluded. We also asked the children who were doing the excluding how it felt – some said they didn’t like it and felt ‘bad’ whereas other children said that they liked being ‘mean’. We then related this experience to what is happening to the Syrian refugees. All the children agreed that they would leave their country if war broke out and hoped that other countries would be kind and help them. This was a really valuable experience that the children got a great deal out of – especially the children moving around the school. They particularly liked their private VIP party afterwards for agreeing to be part of the social experiment.

Following this introduction to Peace Week, and linked into our Star Citizen initiative, the children then studied peace ambassadors such as Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. In Y4b/5 they wrote speeches asking for world peace. 

Lola (Y5) then opened the Peace Festival with her thought provoking message. We then heard songs that promoted peace and love from the children before they went to their stalls to raise money through a variety of games to play and treats to sell. Congratulations to Year Three and the parent cake stall for raising the most money. We are pleased to say that the Peace Festival raised over 1,700€ for Syrian refugees. Thank you to all the parents and staff for their help in organising/running a super event for such a worthy cause.