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Despite all the restrictions in place due to Covid 19, our schools have been hives of activity and learning. Last week I was delighted to cycle around Lambeth acting as a courier service! Well being ambassadors have been making their special Share a Smile scrolls and boxes of ideas and encouragement to share with their partner schools which I collected and distributed. Next on to St Gabriel’s to gather prizes for all the classes who took part in our Science Challenge this year, from Nursery through to Year 6. Finally I distributed medals, prizes and a Summer of Wellbeing Poetry Festival trophy following our Primary poetry celebration last week. Well done to all the children who have worked on these project – your awards have been very much deserved.

Yesterday we held our poetry challenge final on Googlemeet – what an amazing line up of poets we had on the call! Our host was the wonderful professional poet and coach Adisa who kept everyone inspired and entertained throughout. He was joined by local young professional poet Benna, the new Lambeth Poet Laureate, who performed on the call his moving poem Breathe. But with no disrespect to Adisa and Benna, the stars of the the show were 14 primary school poets from the BLC who had written and performed to the highest level, showing the wealth of talent we have in our schools. Their theme was Hope and each poet took the title and made it their own. It was almost an impossible task to decide the winners of the competition, but in 3rd place congratulations go to Fahreed and Isiah from Archbishop Sumner Primary for a fantastic dualogue poem that was impeccably performed; in 2nd to Kitty from St Saviour’s for a brilliantly written and performed solo piece and the winning spot went to Peace from St John’s Angell Town for an utterly compelling and moving poem about hope coming from life in a war zone. Commendations also went to Banke from Christ Church SW9 and to Kadija from Loughborough. Children have shared some of their top tips to encourage their peers to write: ‘Don’t do what others think you should do, be UNIQUE’ was Kitty’s advice; ‘Believe in yourself and never give up. Always be positive. Try to expand your vocabulary’ came from Kadija. We look forward to producing an e-book of the poems and tweeting them over the next couple of months as part of our Summer of Wellbeing.

Last week children from across our cluster of schools joined online, from home and from school, at 3.45pm for the final virtual Maths masterclass in our current series. It was testament to the positive learning attitude of our children that so many joined this week, despite the hot days we had been experiencing. This final session involved making shapes from paper, but crucially, trying to visual how to do it, before having a go. Fran Watson, the RI masterclass lead was very engaging and the children,as always responded to the challenge and contributed throughout.
Thanks to all the RI staff who have worked with us this term. Keen mathematicians from all our schools are invited to join, with their families, on 10th July online, when the RI will host a celebration event.

Congratulations to the 29 children from 6 BLC primary schools who took part in our Poetry semi-finals. What amazing children we have in our schools! The standard was incredible and children had written such moving poems to give us all Hope as we manage our lives now and going forward. It was incredibly difficult to choose which children go through to the final, but the final 12 poems have been chosen and the final will take place next Thursday, with special guest judges Benna (soon to be Lambeth’s Poet Laureate) and Adisa (who has led some inspiring work in our schools over the last few years). We look forward to sharing the poems in this blog, in due course.

This term, as part of our Summer of Wellbeing, funded by Lambeth Elevate, our student wellbeing ambassadors are working with Emotional Literacy teacher Hannah Joyce and artist Abigail Hunt to put together a special Scroll of Smiles and Box of Smiles to share with another group at another school. This week ambassadors at Archbishop Sumner and St John Divine received their boxes, did a workshop with Hannah and have begun to collect jokes, artefacts, messages and ideas to make the other group smile! It was lovely to see the special boxes being prepared to distribute – filled with lots of goodies inside to help the children share their smile ideas – can’t wait to see what the children make and how they decorate them!

On Thursday 17th June, we’ll be holding our Primary Performance Poetry Challenge semi-finals! Children from 6 schools in the cluster have been busy writing their entries on the theme of Hope. At Archbishop Sumner Primary, they had over 100 entries, so have had to make some very hard decisions to select the 4 poems that will go into the semifinals this week. From the semis, 2 poems per school will go through to our final, which will be online on Thursday 24th June, with our guest judges the fabulous performance poets Adisa and Benna. This project is part of our Summer of Wellbeing, funded by Lambeth Elevate.

As part of the BLC/Windmill Cluster Summer of Well Being, funded by Lambeth Elevate,schools and Nurseries across the borough are invited to join in our Well Being Dance Flashmob on 7th July, 2pm. Our arts partner for this event, The Boury Academy, has put together some tutorial videos for teachers and children to use in school to learn the choreography for High School Musical We’re all in this Together, as well as the backing track and some warm-ups. The videos are between 10 and 15 minutes long and Boury Academy dancer Kage takes you through everything you need to learn the routine and be ready to join in the dancemob on 7th. All information to register for the event (by 21st June please) can be accessed through the following link

https://forms.gle/7aPXgMy6JcCKBC8h7

Looking forward to it!

Today we have been delighted to present about Confident Creators at the national Storymakers Festival: Reimagining the Curriculum. Speakers have included researchers and schools across the country – including contributions about the curriculum in Wales, New Zealand and Iceland. Thanks to Leeds Beckett School of Education for organising this event and inviting us to present.

Reimagining Curriculum.pdf

This afternoon 100 children from 14 schools joined a Googlemeet call to start their Share a Smile Campaign for this term, as part of the BLC/Windmill cluster’s Summer of Wellbeing programme, supported by Lambeth Elevate. Hannah Joyce and Abigail Hunt worked with the children to find out what they knew about the benefits of smiling – the scientific evidence, what happens in our bodies when we smile, how the children feel when they smile and things that make them happy. They will take their knowledge and ideas to start a smiling campaign in their schools, coming together in a few weeks to share across schools how they are getting on. Here are just some of the things the children noted made them smile. Thank you all the pupils and staff for sharing today and good luck with your campaigns!

Following the success of the masterclasses we ran with Oval Learning, Windmill cluster and Royal Institution in February, we have been able to put together a short virtual series of further opportunities for some of the gifted young pupils in our primary schools. Just before the end of term we ran 2 virtual sessions, delivered by Rachel Dorris from Royal Institution, on Curves and Parabolas. The children did lots of interactive work exploring shapes and their use in Physics to invent satellite dishes etc and made their own curved stitching drawings. We are delighted to be able to continue this series, with children joining after school – either in school or at home, with monthly masterclasses into the summer. Thank you to the Royal Institution team for enabling this opportunity.