Keep Out!

On Blue Friday, at the end of our anti-bullying weeks, we decided to write messages to the bullies who had ruined our writing area. The children were very keen to express their anger, and children from all classes wrote messages to the bullies at playtime.

Some were short and to the point, 'keep out' and 'go away' and others were a bit more personal. One Year 6 child wrote 'I am really upset by what you did. I used to take my buddy into the area, and she is only little and doesn't understand why anyone would do this!'

We all hope that the people who did this don't come back, and it was really great to read some of the comments left under the Daily Echo article on their website. When the Year 6 children read them they wanted to write their own letters to the Echo. Here is an example of one of them...

To the Editor

This is a letter to tell you how I feel about what happened to writing area.

My heart feels like a black hole sucking in every piece of good in the world. Redbridge is a very good school, I don’t understand why anyone would be so cold and heartless. I’ve heard and seen a few sick things in the world but this is a job for a devil. Me and my friends at Redbridge Primary School have never felt so sad. I hope they end up locked in a dark, cold cage. One day they will rot and if they return they will be in a lot of trouble.

They think there so hard picking on a school for kids but have we given up, no, and these people are going to get caught and locked up if I ever see these people again. They feel no guilt, the only achievement they’ve earned is getting themselves a ticket to jail. These people are nothing but weak, spineless fools. If they are so tough they wouldn’t come back at all, so all hope they will never they will not show they there faces here again.

Yours Sincerely

Jordan Aged 11

We have also had some very kind offers from parents to help mend the benches, and from a local company who read about what had happened and wanted to help. They have really helped to cheer us all up.

Miss Proctor

Spoiling our fun!

On Monday Morning, the writing area was cetainly generating a lot of discussion, but unfortunately, for the wrong reasons. During the weekend, some destructive individuals had decided to destroy as much of the area as they could... smashing all our plant pots, breaking our benches and ripping the children's work off the tree and fences! It's nice to see how the community shows their appreciation for all our hard work!

One boy just asked me, "Why?" and it was very hard to answer him. Here are just a few comments the children made...
"Why would anyone do that?"
"Why did they want to spoil it?"
"It's really unfair!"
"What can we do now?"
"They should be ashamed!"
"They wouldn't like it if we went into their gardens and spoiled them!"
And one comment already thinking ahead to the future... "Are we going to do some more fund-raising now?"

We will, of course, do what we can to make the area special again, but it will take some time, and after seeing such willful destruction, it will never feel completely the same.

Miss Proctor

Update from 25th November.

The Southern Daily Echo also covered this story.

A 'magical' writing display!

Following our 'magical' writing day, we have displayed a selection of work from Year R to Year 6 in our school hall. Everyone has had a chance to read some of the 'magical' writing the children, and adults, produced. We all agreed that it was an exciting day, where we all had fun with our writing.

We are all looking forward to our next 'special' writing day.... Any ideas?
Miss Proctor

Magical Writing Day!

We all had a very 'magical' writing day on Friday 24th October. We decided to link our everybody writes day with something that all of the children enjoy... magic! To make it that extra bit special the children were asked to wear a 'magical' costume to school.

The day started with a special assembly, with some'real' magic, and then lots of different writing activities took place in all the classrooms from Year R to Year 6. In Year 2 the children were very keen to write their own magic spells!

Strange spells were written in some classrooms, monsters created in others, and everything from poetry, wands with magical powers and magic fingers, took place around the school.

At lunchtime, the children found some 'magical' resources in the everybody writes area, and it was great to see so many children choosing to write at lunchtime, as well as through the whole day. As one teacher said, "Some children didn't notice that they'd been doing writing activities all day!"

At the end of the day, some classes shared what they had done, and they were all desperate to read what they'd created.

One Year 6 boy told me that he..."Thought it was going to be a bit boring, because it was just writing, but it's been really exciting!" They certainly enjoyed writing their magical spell poems, and were proud to show them off.

We will be displaying a selection of the writing from all the classes, in our school hall, so that everyone can enjoy it. As one child said... "I want to do more. It doesn't feel like we've been writing all day!"

Miss Proctor