Mr Oxenham has recently launched a Ukulele club for pupils in years 3 and 4 who are keen to learn. This week they performed their first ‘gig’ for the whole school accompanying the year 3 and 4 choir as the choir sang a newly written ‘Friendship Song’, with lyric written by the choir and melody by Emeli Sande and led by Ms Gemmell
You can see their performance here
Watch Ukulele Club and Year 3/4 choir
This week has been friendship week at CDPS and the highlight is always ‘big friend, little friend’ when our oldest children partner up with our very youngest for an afternoon of sharing books, playing game and being made to feel special. For the older children, it is a chance to be caring and generous and to exemplify the values of the school to a younger child – they all feel very grown up and proud. For the younger children, it is often a highlight of their term, as a trusting and warm relationship with an ‘big boy’ or ‘big girl’ often makes transitions up the school easier and gives our younger pupils the confidence to join in with clubs and activities with older year groups.
For everybody, a school where friendships transcend age groups and gender makes for a very happy school!
Friendship Week is a special annual event when we focus on ‘anti-bullying’ and how to form and maintain strong healthy relationships.
Lots of highlights include ‘Big Friend, Little Friend’ where older children are teamed up with our younger classes for games and fun – there is much laughter and many new friendships are born!
All the children love ‘secret friend’ – an activity which runs all week. All the staff and children are allocated a ‘secret friend’ who is somebody who spends their week making them feeling special with handmade treats, opening doors and complimentary hand written notes – I am sure you will all agree that Friendship Week should happen everywhere!
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Friendship and the associated feelings of feeling happy, safe and part of a community are really important to us as Charles Dickens Primary School. We have a special week each year to celebrate the friendships that children cherish throughout the school and to bring to forefront of everyone’s mind how to be a good friend, how to make sure that everyone feels safe and happy around the school and what to do if you feel someone is not being a good friend.
A fun part of friendship week is ‘secret friend’ – everyone gets a secret friend in their class, someone they might not know that well and their task is to make that person feel really special all week without revealing themselves. Children make cards and gifts, write poems, say lovely things ‘out of the blue’ about their secret friend and make sure they have great playtimes.
Today all the children took part in ‘Big Friend, Little Friend’. This is a time when the older pupils in the school make time to be with our very youngest pupils, reading with them, talking, crafts, games and generally allowing those small children the chance to feel safe and secure around older children. Everyone really enjoys this event and we hope to build on its success.
Friendship week is still in full swing so there is more news on its way.
Special thanks to Miss Robertson for organising such a fun packed week.