Harold Hill Youth Summit @ Mead

In partnership with Alysha and Zoe from Free The Children our Harold Hill Schools held a Cluster Youth Summit last week. 12 pupils (6 from KS1 and 6 KS2) were selected to represent their school. which give us a group of 72.

The objective of the day was themed around the Free the Children campaign of 'We Volunteer Now'. In the morning we held workshops with the volunteering projects following in the afternoon.

Morning
Session 1 - Team building / trust activities
Session 2 - Group work regarding volunteering projects.

Afternoon
Session 3 - Volunteering projects
Session 4 - Feedback

There were 6 mini projects chosen:

1. Visiting the foodbank to help sort food
2. Visiting a local care home to talk to the residents 
3. Making cards to give out to the elderly and visiting an old folks group
4. Litter picking at Central park and making art out of the litter found
5. Organisng and running a food collection at the local supermarket
6. Making care packages for the local women's refuge

Pupils from all of the Harold Hill schools donated food and items for the care packages, without these donations the projects would not have been possible. It is amazing what our pupils can achieve together. The volunteers on the day sorted over half a tonne of food and made up over 100 care packages.

The summit's focus was to empower pupils to make an impact within their local community. The pupils learned about the issues and planned their next steps for action to create social change in their local communities.

Tanya Jones Y6 from Mead Primary School said 'I had an amazing day. I now understand my responsibility to keep my local environment clean. We had loads of fun at the park collecting the rubbish and making the art. The litter face is sad because of all of the rubbish people have thrown across the area.'


Miss Spinks, Year 3&4 lead at Mead Primary School said 'I am so proud that our pupils are leading social change in their local communities. This day has given them the opportunity to develop their leadership skills and demonstrate reciprocity by collaborating with other Harold Hill pupils.'