Diana Memorial Award and Copenhagen Conference

Two very nice events for us have happened this week. Firstly, we received a letter to say that our nomination - which we were invited to make because of our innovative work in tackling bullying  - for a Diana Memorial Award had been successful!  The purpose of this award is to celebrate the work which young people make towards their school, family or community. The contributions include peer mentoring, fund raising, sports leadership and recognition of those who have overcome diversity. This award was established in 1999 by a board chaired by the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown, who felt that it reflected the late Diana's personal interest in young people.
Mr Walker and Mrs Warren wrote a bid stating that 71 pupils were currently trained as Peer Mentors, with more on the waiting list. All year groups have worked with the Beatbullying charity and these activities have brought about a very positive awareness amongs the pupils about the programme and enabled those who are Peer Mentors to use their life experiences to benefit others. Next year, another 100 students will be trained for this role. In addition, older students are reader mentors for younger pupils.  The organisers wrote: "The assessors were really impressed with it and particularly thought that the nominee was an excellent role model and that the nomination really did have the "Wow" factor that we were looking for."
As well as this, our students are also involving themselves with the wider community, indeed the international community. The School Council  wrote a presentation about climate change which they gave to Marshgate Primary School Key Stage 2 pupils, followed by a short DVD produced by Action Aid expanding upon the issues of climate change and the importance of children's voices being heard.  The presentation spoke of the importance of influencing the Kyoto agreement and getting the US to sign up to it. Sample posters were made, with captions such as: "Keep the World Cool" and "Food not Dust". Marshgate pupils were asked if they could make some posters too, with a message in glue and sand, as a representation of the ground turning to dust in some parts of the world. The images of the artwork, the presentation and a letter will be sent to Ed Miliband MP. Shene students were also due to present to Holy Trinity Primary but we had to cancel since it was the same date as our Ofsted monitoring visit. Many thanks to Ms Banks for coordinating all this and the Shene School Council students.