Debrief

New friends playing together

This year my class is lucky to be part of a link up project between 3 local schools funded by the Integrated Education Fund. The 3 schools involved are 2 nursery classes, Windmill & Drumshee & a primary class in a special school, Sperrinview. I love having links with others but unfortunately it does cost money, we have to be able to pay for the transport costs to visit each others settings or to go on trips to other places. So I was delighted to receive over £3500 to help fund a great project this year with the 3 classes, it’s called “Learning through Play – Learning for Life – Learning to Care”.

After this first meeting the other children got ‘rain gear’

From November until May the 3 classes will visit each others settings, go on trips to local woodland classrooms, have a visit from an aquarium & work with a professional artist to create permanent pieces of artwork for each school from recycled materials. the whole project will culminate with a Teddy Bears Picnic for all the children, staff & parents at the end of May to celebrate the project.
We first started links with the Special school 3 years ago when they opened a new sensory garden & invited us along to enjoy it. We initially thought that it would be our children who would gain most by mixing with children with both physical & mental disabilities.

Sperrinview has a wonderful natural play area

However on the first day we met up it became immediately apparant that the children from the other school were gaining so much by following our children. That day, they climbed trees and banks, rolled in the leaves etc. – things they had never done before on their own. In fact after our first visit the staff at Sperrinview decided to invest in ‘rain gear’ for their children so they could fully enjoy their outdoor area. For many of their parents it was a delight to pick their child up that day & be told that they were covered in mud because they had rolled down a steep bank.

Having the link with another nursery class has proved invaluable too – for the staff it’s a chance to visit each other classes & share ideas on resources, songs, and art projects. The children enjoy hosting visitors to their school & comparing what is the same or different between each classroom. They love it when another child in the different class has the same name as them. Soemtimes some of the children from Drumshee go to Primary 1 in our school & it helps when they already know some of the children through the nursery link up.

I am looking forward to 3 new classes making friends this year & learning from each other & just enjoying being in each others company. So a big thanks to the IEF for funding this great project & opportunity for over 60 children and their teachers & parents to create some great new links, friendships & memories over the next few months.