Pupils at St. Mary’s, Newton Aycliffe had lots to report on their last week before the Easter holidays.
Our Year 4 pupils had done an Assembly on Water Aid and have been raising money in their class towards this. Already well over £100 has been raised. On Monday the 23rd of March our year 4 pupils carried containers of water around our school field for around 31 minutes, covering around 1.28 miles.
The children now feel they have a better appreciation of what it must be like for children across the world who don’t have the water we do. The water used for this activity was not wasted; instead it was safely transported into water butts in our school garden by Mr. Wheatley, our caretaker.
On Thursday, 26th of March we organised a school Lent craft market, initially through our school Mini Vinnies. Each class were given £10 to buy the resources they needed, then the idea was they had to make things and sell them, making a profit for our school Cafod lent appeal.
Children worked very hard and the range of items on sale was amazing. Items ranged from bracelets, key rings, candles, paper flowers and vases, craft bags and plants. Our reception children were artists for the afternoon, doing portraits and there was a beautiful cake stall.
The Government will match any money we raise during Lent this year and our afternoon was a bigger success than we ever imagined! With our class collections as well, we raised over £500, so with the matched funding, as a school we have raised over £1000. We have invited our local Cafod office in Durham to come into school on Monday, 20th of April to receive the money we raised.
A huge thank you to all parents, grandparents and members of our parish community. Already looking forward to what we can do next year!
Our amazing last week ended on Friday at 2.00 pm with a Stations of the Cross Service. Year 3 and 4 children led these and shared what happened to Jesus before he died. The children did extremely well re-enacting what happened, using lots of powerful expression and spoke very clearly. A big thank you again to our parents, grandparents and parishioners who supported our children.
At the end of our Service a selection of children came to share examples of the crosses from around the world they had made in their Pastoral afternoon.
