Taking Care: Our Environment, Ourselves

I would like to begin by thanking Don Ledingham (Head of Education, East Lothian Council) for the invitation and opportunity to post on this site! Good karma seems to have prompted a delightful and productive chance encounter as I was meeting with Mrs. Therese Laing (Head Teacher, Humbie Primary) yesterday afternoon. As mentioned in my profile, I am a parent volunteer supporting the Humbie After School Care Club as their special projects manager. We are currently preparing funding applications for our “Taking Care: Our Environment, Ourselves” project. Thus far, the response to our ideas* has been wonderfully enthusiastic and supportive. We might be one of the smallest primary schools in East Lothian, but, as ever, we have big ambitions.

My own background will become somewhat self-evident; however, to preçis**:

- My academic work is in the field of modern languages and literatures, with special interest in language acquisition, teaching methodologies, linguistics and semiology. I hold a BA and two MA’s in Spanish Language and Literature;

- My professional work has been mainly in the areas of project conception, development and management; administration and research support; and teaching.

Consequently, I must beg indulgence for my occasional use of linguistic legerdemain. I guess I am a fundamental contradiction: a modern mum with old-fashioned philologistic tendencies.

We arrive at today’s juncture through another series of fortuitous events. The Humbie Primary PTA received notice of the ELVON / NHS Lothian “Community Health Development Grants” scheme and passed it on to the After School Care Club committee. At out first PTA meeting in September, I volunteered to help develop a project proposal in line with the scheme’s aims.

This seemed to be an unmissable opportunity to “test out a new idea, start a new piece of work or try an idea from elsewhere to see how it works in East Lothian” (vide: Community Health Development Grants 2006-7 information leaflet). Research into what makes a health-promoting school and a look at successful initiatives, as well as my own knowledge of the excellent work already in place at Humbie Primary, led to a first draft of “Initial Ideas”. My suggestion rooted itself in the rather unique cultural make-up of the Humbie Primary student body and a very interesting Australian school project.

Currently, of the 19 primary pupils, we have one who moved to the area from Hungary, two from France and another who has recently returned after 2 years in Spain with her family.

The Australian project was in response to the challenges of a multi-ethnic / multi-racial student population. Their wellbeing and acceptance programme included activities intended to foster the ideas of community and belonging, as well as addressing the problems of bullying.

It occurred to me that the After School Care Club could join Humbie Primary in promoting wellbeing and understanding among the students. In addition to meeting the practical needs of the After School Care Club as already identified by the Committee and playworkers, I proposed updating the idea of “Circle Time” in its real and metaphorical senses. The express intention was to foster and strengthen:

- cooperation
- understanding
- cultural awareness
- listening / language / communication skills
- empathy
- a sense of community
- identity
- friendship
- belonging
- other cognitive and fine-motor skills
- and real senses of emotional and psychological wellbeing

It was my wish to carry forward the caring, healthy school ethos so fundamental to Humbie Primary. International research shows that these sorts of activities reduce instances of bullying or other anti-social behaviours.

Caroline Keefe (Chair, Humbie After School Care Club) suggested adding an element which would address the children’s physical environment while encouraging cooperation and providing a sense of achievement: the After School Care Club might build its own windmill. Armed with printouts and a minute of ideas, three weeks ago Caroline met with the children of the After School Care Club and with the Humbie Primary Student Committees (Health and Eco-Environment). The children were enthusiastic and full of ideas.Unfortunately, I’ve had to be away for most of October for personal reasons. It has only been in the last week that I’ve had a chance to pull together all the various threads and develop the project proposal.

“Taking Care: Our Environment, Ourselves” will appear - as time and circumstances allow (festina lente) - over the coming weeks. At Don Ledingham’s request / invitation, I hope to share with you the ideas and information shaping our project. Whenever possible, I’ll include links to sites of interest.

Feedback, comments, suggestions are very welcome! Corrections, too, if you must, but bear in mind I’m a non-native speaker of British English whose tongue misses her palate and lands squarely in her cheek at times.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Eliza Sparks

* By our, I mean the Humbie After School Care Club students, playworkers, committee and volunteers; the Humbie Primary School Student Committees (Health and Eco-Environment); as well as my own research into outstanding initiatives and projects from schools around the world.

**FIY: There are a couple of websites that have been very helpful in producing these blogs: (1)  http://www.intuitive.com/coolweb/entitie… for HTML character entries for common foreign language characters and other diacritics; and (2) http://werbach.com/barebones/barebones.h… for almost all other HTML entries.

Copyright © E K Sparks and the Humbie After School Care Club, 31 October 2006. All rights reserved in the interests of protecting the intellectual property of the project participants and to help ensure that any future commercial benefits are retained by the Humbie After School Care Club in line with its charitable status. Please contact us for permission to use, reproduce, etc. any material posted on this website. We request that proper acknowledgements are made at all reasonable times.

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