PUPILS from Coventry’s St Thomas More Catholic School have been learning about social issues and how they came about before taking action to help address them, writes Ryan Oldfield.
Each year group had a different issue to tackle.
Year six focused on homeless children and raised funds for the charity Railway Children, which offers shelter and protection to homeless children in the UK and in other countries. They set a target of £60 (£1 per child) and got to work.
With individual sponsored events, they engaged the school and local communities and, with a fund-raising fair as well, collected £1,600.
City business Brown and Hawthorne Engineering Ltd was so impressed it matched the funds raised, taking the total to £3,200 for the cause.
The students then presented the cheque to a representative from the Railway Children charity.
Year five students collected around 2,000 items of food to donate to Carrier of Hope – the Coventry-based charity which supports people when they arrive in the city.
Issues covered by other year groups included litter-picking, plastic pollution in oceans and UN Rights of the Child with focus on children who are not able to go to school in different parts of the world.
The plight of displaced people who have arrived in Coventry and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade were also examined.
