World Week in Year 3

This week at St. Vincent’s we celebrated World Week with special lessons, workshops and events each day!

Spirituality Day

On Spirituality Day we spent time thinking about a strand of Catholic Social Teacher which was Community and Participation. We focused on the work that CAFOD do in Bangladesh. Initially we learnt more about where Bangladesh it, its climate and some challenges people in Bangladesh face such as severe weather and poverty. We heard a story about Shukla, a lady from Bangladesh who struggled to make a living after the death of her husband. Thankfully, Shukla’s community worked together to help her. They helped her to get in touch with CAFOD who gave her training and encouraged her to keep going. She is now stable and is able to help others in her community to use eco-farming that helps the environment. The love she received from her community enabled her to show love to others and make the world a better place. We discussed the importance of our local community and created a pledge of how we could help our local communities and the vulnerable people in them. At the end of the day the whole school came together to a special assembly where we all shared our work and prayed for our world.

Safer Internet Day

As we are more and more connected to others all around the world through the joys of technology, it is also important to remind ourselves how to stay safe online. On Tuesday, Miss Carruthers delivered a wonderful assembly about the changes that happen online, on apps and with technology. We looked at how technology has changed and how some changes to apps, websites and videos can be exciting but also surprising or maybe even frightening. We thought carefully about what we can do to stay safe online, even when things change.

Later in the day we had a brilliant workshop with Iris from Mind all about kindness. We learnt that kindness is a nice action for someone without wanting anything in return. We learnt that we can be kind to people, animals and the planet. We watched a video that demonstrated some kind actions such as sharing, looking after people’s belongings and helping people if they need it, especially the elderly. The main message of the video was: ‘when we share acts of kindness, we colour our world’. Not only will be be happier if we are kind to others, but our kindness will spread to others and others can learn from us. We shared some examples of thing actions we have done or some kind actions that others have shown to us as well as how we feel during these situations both in real life and online. We then played a game about different scenarios to decide whether the actions we saw were kind or unkind and how we could tell this!

Children’s Mental Health Week

World Week coincides with Children’s Mental Health Week. As part of this, Year 3 took part in some special activities to help us think more about our mental health and about why we matter. On Tuesday, we had a very useful workshop on breathing with Holistic Therapist, Amy. Amy showed us different techniques we could use when we might be feeling sad, annoyed or frustrated. She used a ball, a buzzy bee and her cuddle toy friend to show us how we can introduce slow, calm, deep breaths which can help us relax, manage stress, relieve anxiety, and get a good night’s sleep Breathing is a very useful tool and life strategy for supporting our mental health!

On Thursday we thought about how every person matters. We explored the meaning of ‘matter’ and thought about who matters and why. We then watched a video all about Pope Francis’ encyclical ‘Fratelli Tutti’ which explains how each person is a part of our global community and we should overcome our differences to work together towards peace, love and hope. Year 3 then completed an activity to explain why we, and everyone else in our world matters equally.

Cultural Day

Friday was Cultural Day which was a very special day indeed! After last Friday’s International Evening, we continued to embrace our vibrant cultures by dressing up either in national dress or the colours of our country’s flag! Everyone looked so fantastic. We were also lucky enough to watch a fantastic assembly showcasing the talents and cultures of our school which included singing, dancing and instrument playing!

Year 3 also had a very important lesson on identity and the different communities that exist in our local area. We looked at the different demographics such as ethnicity and religion within Marylebone and thought how about these aspects form an important part of our identity. We thought about other factors that contribute to our identity such as our languages, values, clubs, hobbies, likes and dislikes.

What a brilliant end to a very busy half term! Well done Year 3 for all of your amazing work and dedication, I am so proud of you all…

What was your favourite part of World Week?