Primary Times - the definitive what’s on and where to go family guide of activities and events for children of primary school age. Things to do with your kids during the school holidays including arts and craft activities, music and theatre for children, parties, competitions, days out, and family attractions along with term time drama schools, dance classes, after school clubs and sports activities. Things to do at a place near you!
Elephant Extravaganza
On 27th November, a surprise delivery arrived at our school (St Joseph and St Theresa). In the week prior to this, we had clues to help us discover what this delivery might be!
On Wednesday 6th December, Ms Walker (our head teacher) unveiled the unexpected parcel - it was an elephant! Many of the children in our school had guessed this, using the clues. The elephant is a blank canvas and as a school we have created a design for our elephant, which will be painted onto it in the coming weeks by the pupils of our school – all children, staff and governors of our school will put a thumb print onto the elephant as a lasting legacy of their time here.
The elephant was paid for by Tara Homes Limited Noel Sweeney Foundation and donated to the school as part of a ‘March of the Elephants’ trail which is a public art sculpture trail aiming to raise funds for St Giles Hospice, which is in its 40th year. This trail adventure allows you to see a herd of elephants all around Lichfield, Tamworth and Sutton Coldfield, each individually designed by artists, community groups and schools.
As part of this adventure as a school we need to raise £750 for St Giles. The staff in our school (who love to bake) helped us to make some cakes, cookies and biscuits for a bake sale which we sold at Tara Group offices (Chasetown Civil Engineering, Keon Homes, Cameron Homes) and to our school community. We also had the opportunity in school to create some elephant crafts which we then sold to our parents. Through these event, we raised a staggering £531.70.
This week, our Year 5 & Year 6 pupils have been busy doing a charity car wash – they cleaned cars for Tara Homes employees and school staff – some of them really needed some scrubbing! We had 3 work stations where we jet-washed, washed, rinsed, dried and polished the cars. Our Year 5s and Year 6 pupils (and staff) were very tired after all the hard work but they raised another £165 bringing our total to £659.13.
We are nearly at our goal of £750 but we could not have done this without the huge support of Tara Group Ltd. The Noel Sweeney Foundation was created as a lasting memorial to the founder of the Tara Group. Noel was an active governor at St Joseph and St Theresa and was very passionate and committed to the local community and helping those most in need. The Sweeney Family continue to oversee his legacy of charitable support.
St Giles Hospice have worked directly with families and children of our school and when the opportunity arose to be part of this amazing art trail Ms Walker and the staff at our school felt it was very important that we give back to them, both through bringing awareness to the amazing work St Giles Hospice but also through giving our time, prayers and money to support this amazing charity. St Giles Hospice provides care to those with terminal illnesses and there is a growing need for their services. It costs £10 million to deliver the care that these people need and there are more incurable illness, as well as providing bereavement support to more than 2,000 people each year.
To find out more about this exciting project and the amazing work the hospice does follow this link: www.stgileshospice.com/march-of-the-elephants-launch