I am a regular watcher of Countryfile and, when I saw them advertise their ‘Countryfile Ramble’ in aid of Children in Need, my mind immediately went to how I might get the kids at school involved. I am always looking for opportunities to get the pupils outside and realising the joy of walking in the countryside. Our school, Michael Drayton Junior (MDJS) is a big one… over 500 pupils, so the logistics of organising that many pupils off-site, with the staff involved was a little too epic in the short time I had to organise it, so I settled for trialling it out with my eco-committe of 16 members. We have one child from each class elected to be the class representative and we try to meet every month. I thought it would be great to get this group involved and put it to them at our meeting. We would spend an afternoon rambling around our local area and then try to raise money, by either donating or being sponsored. The eco-committee were really keen, so we arranged it for the following Monday afternoon; the day after the programmes weekend events.
The pupils were raring to go on Monday afternoon! We all had our Children in Need MDJS flags. The Year 6 boys had even dressed up! Wren was joining us, along with two other members of staff and we set off to work our way around Hartshill Hayes, a great woodland resource right on the school’s doorstep.
We took a couple of Pudsey bears too and the children chose where to take photos of them!
We had a fantastic afternoon, walking for an hour and a half…. and for about 7km. The pupils were absolutely fantastic! Full of enthusiasm and not a single moan, despite some large hills!
It was an absolute pleasure to take this group of pupils out for the afternoon and we all had such a lovely time exploring our local green space. We finally arrived back to the gate, to head back to school in time for the end of the school day.
It looks like we have also raised an impressive amount of money, thanks to all the wonderful sponsors that the children managed to convince to sponsor them! I will update this post once we have the final figure.
One of the greatest pleasure for me???? Simply seeing 16 children out in the woods, running, laughing, clambering and playing. Sadly, I feel that this is something that, for many children, does not happen enough. Well done guys! I am so proud of you all!!