Pinewood end of year report ...
In this second year of the Pinewood link with St John’s First the Baptist School, the excitement of the first year was built upon throughout the year, with much fundraising in the form of House Charity Days, where the children run stalls and games, collections after school productions and, for the first time, the involvement of the youngest Pinewood children, aged 3-7, in the Pre-Prep.
The Pre-Prep dedicated whole days to studying some aspects of the lives of the children in Shonda: their diet; how they get to school; subjects the children study and wider topics such as climate, dancing and music. The young Pinewood children made a collection of their own, and bought educational materials, board games, skipping ropes and balls for the Early Years children in Shonda. They also made a beautiful wall hanging with all the handprints from the Pinewood children, and all of this was boxed up and sent to Shonda. To everyone’s relief this arrived safely and was hugely appreciated by the staff and children in Shonda.
The Pinewood Banner is proudly displayed in Shonda
The Y5 Pinewood children wrote postcards to the children in Shonda as part of their Geography studies and later skyped them to try to ask questions, although this was rather tricky because of timings and IT issues!
Pinewood has undertaken to raise enough funds to pay a teacher’s salary each year, but this was a bumper year in terms of fund raising, as the House Charity Days were also donated to Shonda. This meant that with surplus funds Pinewood was able to support other projects within Shonda, and was able to contribute to the new Computer Lab facilities, support the feeding programme, buy books and uniforms, and also enable some Shonda children to attend the National Music Festival.