Primary Phase Raise £1565 for the Alzheimer’s Society and Young Minds
 /  News / Primary Phase Raise £1565 for the Alzheimer’s Society and Young Minds
Primary Phase Raise £1565 for the Alzheimer’s Society and Young Minds

Primary Phase Raise £1565 for the Alzheimer’s Society and Young Minds

Gomer Junior School – Elf Day Charity Event for the Alzheimer’s Society

All staff and children dressed as elves to support the Alzheimer’s Society and raise awareness of the disease on Friday 11 December. 

As part of their ‘No Outsiders’ curriculum, Gomer Junior educate children about respect for diversity and difference; as part of an aging population, the school felt that it was important that this event helped to extend and apply this learning to the older generation, so that pupils could be more aware of how people might change around them, as they got older.

Associate Head Teacher, Karen Digby, coordinated the day; her family’s experience of Early onset Alzheimers meant she was keen to ensure that more is understood and appreciated about the variety and scale of the condition. She said, ‘As people live longer and we have an aging population, it is important that we understand how we and others can be affected and supported, if we are unfortunately put in the situation where we need to manage the effect of this disease.’

Important functions of a healthy brain, alongside the challenges that dementia brings for adult carers but also children, who are living in the knowledge that a family member has this often long and uniquely cruel disease. Sofia Digby (8) commented that she found it difficult to talk about how this disease changed her Grandpa, who she misses greatly, but was so impressed with the amount of effort her friends went to to help raise money for other people with Alzheimers in such a fun way. ‘It was a really interesting day – we learnt how important each part of the brain is to help us do everything every day that we take for granted’, Madison McLaren (9).

In order for support for this cause to be effective, charities like Alzheimer’s Society rely on charitable donations. They use these to research how people can begin to try to prevent or at least delay the onset of this horrible disease, plus provide support to those already living with or caring for someone with it.

The School’s Just Giving Page and cash donations from the school community on Elf day raised £477, which will go directly to Alzheimers Society charity. The school were extremely pleased with the amount they raised and were overwhelmed by the amount of people who used this opportunity to share their own experiences with the disease. 

Rowner Junior School – Commando Joe’s Charity Event for YoungMinds

During the last few weeks of the Autumn Term, Year 5 learnt about the great English explorer, Sir Ranulph Fiennes as part of their Commando Joe’s Character Curriculum. Throughout this unit of work, the children have taken part in a ‘trans-globe adventure’, completing several character building missions with their peers along the way. The final mission involved the children designing their own obstacle course and challenges to raise money for YoungMinds charity. The charity aims to ‘see a world where no young person feels alone with their mental health, and gets the mental health support they need, when they need it, no matter what.’ Mariella S sadi, ‘This was an incredibly fun experience and it was great to see people using their imagination to create the obstacles.’ Mariella S

 

The children took home sponsorship forms, imploring friends and family alike, to provide a donation for this final mission. Using an assortment of objects including tyres, hurdles, hula hoops, bean bags, tennis rackets and benches, the children worked in groups to construct their own obstacle station. Each group demonstrated how their station worked, before moving around in a carousel to try out the different activities. Once every group had completed all activities, the stations were adapted to create one continuous (and muddy) obstacle course. 

With the help of Year 5 and the generous Rowner community, the children successfully raised £813 to support children’s mental health. This is an astounding achievement, one that brightened the days of everyone at Rowner, and is a true mark of the giving nature of the surrounding community. This money will now help to support those who need it most. Rubi D said, ‘It made me super pleased that we raised all this money for charity.’ 

Pupil voice:

What did we do?

‘A few weeks ago we designed a huge assault course as part of our CoJos mission to help raise money for charity. On Tuesday 15th December, we took part in the assault course. We had to tap cones, jump over horses, go under nets and balance on benches. It was lots of fun,” Emily.

Why did we take part in the fundraising event?

“We all took part to raise money for people so that people with mental health problems can enjoy life, even if they struggle,” Connor.

What is Commando Joe’s (CoJos)?

“CoJos involves going on missions and completing tasks,” Bradley.

“CoJos helps your personality to develop,” Connor.

Gomer Junior School wore yellow on World Mental Health day in October. They raised £275 for dressing in yellow and donated the money to Young Minds.

GFM Education
Bay House School
Gomer Lane, Alverstoke
Gosport
Hampshire
PO12 2QP

Company number: 07834711