It was a strange St Patricks Day all round! The Academy has been bombarded with Paddington and his friends; and there are a few curious looks amid the corridors.
7F and their form teacher Miss Foster decided to have a fund-raiser with a twist for the very worthy charity ‘Alzheimer’s Society.’ 7F and I took some time to decide on which charity to raise money for and as most of the girls in the form and myself had watched the Ch 4 ‘Dispatches’ documentary on Fiona Phillips and her dad who suffers from this illness we agreed this was the charity we would support.
The girls took their initial idea to have a ‘teddy bears picnic’ and along with the fact that Paddington bear is over 50 yrs old applied to Alzheimer’s which is an illness associated with growing older. As it was such a sensitive area deciding on how to launch the event became the next task in writing an assembly.
The assembly last week involved the performance of a short sketch written by the girls focusing on a granddad and his grandchildren visiting McDonalds. The facts on the disease were presented in a slideshow and the form explained their charity event highlighting it was to be run on St Patricks Day and would be called ‘Paddy Bears’ with the option open to wear a green accessory as well. The assembly closed with the guest appearance on stage of a life sized bear.
The Alzheimer’s Society sent a banner to be displayed in school which reminded pupils of the event in the build-up to St Patricks Day. A number of girls came to see me in the days after the assembly to make their generous donations and shared with me the fact that their grandparent suffers from dementia.
The mysterious bear has appeared around school in her breaks all day with members of 7F collecting funds. So far today almost £100 has been raised and we hope to raise more money later in the week when the bear is available to appear in photographs with older girls as they prepare their Year Book.