What is Courageous Advocacy?

Children, today, live in an increasingly globalised and interconnected world. In order to make sense of their own community, they need to be able to look at a wider global picture.

Our world is made up of divisions, extreme inequalities, injustice, poverty, conflict and environmental crises. Children often learn about these issues via the media and personal experiences. As a result of this, our children naturally have lots of questions, concerns and emotions. 

In our school, with your help, we want to provide a safe space and structure for our children to begin to make sense of the world they are encountering and their place within it. We want to support them as they begin to realise their hopes and aspirations for a more just and sustainable world in which we live well together, at local, national and global levels.

Last year, our children had the opportunity to discuss their ideas as to which charities to support and how we could raise funds for these through our School Council meetings. Through these meetings we discussed supporting more local charities and community support events such as: Belper Shoebox Appeal, Christmas Jumper Swaps, Winter Coat Swaps and 'Leave your old shoes on the table' days. The children also tried to take into account how much money is a reasonable amount to spend on charity events for the average child, each year. They considered events that were the equivalent to money gained via pocket money. This way children could contribute personally and appreciate the cost of things for themselves. The whole school will be alerted to these charity events with regular Charity New Bulletins. We are looking forward to supporting many charities and recognise that many of these need our help now, more than ever!!!!

At St. John's C.E. Primary School, our children have always supported many local, national and global charities. For many years, we have supported the Padley Group, where we have raised money and collected food for the homeless and disabled. This has always been widely supported by our school community at our annual Harvest Festival service at St. Peter's Church. This year, it will take place at school and will be led by our Year 3 children.

We also support national and global charities such as Children in Need, Comic Relief and Sport Relief. 

Our school is closely linked to Scott Lane School in Kolkata, India. Several school staff members have been over to visit the staff and children there, over the last couple of years. The children are developing a strong bond with these children and have been involved in 'WhatsApp' calls and follow regular updates and blogs regarding their progress. As part of this connection, our children have organised events such as the Christmas Jumper Day, Christmas T-shirt/jumper decorating events and a Bauble competition. The children raised funds for Scott Lane School and also presented them with the winning bauble design for their Christmas tree, last year.