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Children's World
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Children's World |
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Note the date of this report. More recent news can be found elsewhere. News from the DirectorChildren's World and Children's World International NewsFebruary 2005 
Hi! Firstly we would like to thank David Parsons for so kindly improving our website. He has spent many hours working on it, and it looks a great deal better than it did, and we are extremely grateful to him. We hope you enjoy the webpages, and that you find them easy to negotiate – if you have any problems, do please email us at Postmaster@childrensworldcharity.org so that we can make any necessary changes. And do always feel free to ring me on 01458 832925 if you have any queries or would like further information on any aspect of our work.
I am going to use this page to update people each month about how both Charities’ work is progressing. So here goes……
Since we published the 1 September 2003-31 August 2004 Annual Report lots of work has been undertaken very successfully. Drama / Creative PlayThe Autumn Term 2004 Drama/Creative Play Tour for children with Severe Difficulties and Complex Difficulties ran for 6 weeks in September/October 04. Five special schools were visited each week:
How this Tour is run
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VideoWe have just completed
The Spring Term 2005 Video Tour for children with Moderate Learning Difficulties and Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties This 5-week Tour visited 6 special schools each week:
How this Tour is run
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Apart from these 2 major Tours we have been undertaking all sorts of other interesting work in the 6 months of this academic year. Merging SchoolsWe have been undertaking a very interesting
Consultancy with the Children of Brookside Primary School and the Primary Children of Avalon Special School. These 2 schools may be merging in the future, and we were asked by the Heads of the 2 schools if we could run a Consultancy ensuring that the children’s voices were heard. We applied for a DFES Grant via Yspeak Consultation Fund, and were delighted to receive a grant of £8,467 This, with donations of £1,000 each from the 2 schools and from Children's World will cover the costs of the ongoing project. We have already held numerous meetings with the staff of both schools, and in recently ran a full week of workshops working with all the primary age children of both schools in 14 integrated groups. Games and trust work were undertaken in integrated groups and discussions held about how they felt about working with each other. A new Children’s World song, written especially for the Consultancy Project, called “The Road Together” was taught to the children and performed by them at the schools’ Christmas Concerts. Now, during the Spring Term, groups of children are visiting the other school and reporting back to their classmates, and lengthy discussions are going on to help the children access their true feelings about working more closely together. Teachers are creating notes on all visits and classroom discussions for perusal by our team before we return for 2 further weeks of workshops during the weeks of 7 and 14 March. During the first of these 2 weeks, we will run further games and activities workshops for groups of integrated, mixed-ability children from both schools along with discussions about the proposed merger, and we will be encouraging the children to create artwork of many different kinds to express their views. During the second week, we will be meeting the children of both schools in non-integrated groups to see their artwork, to make sure they have really understood the whole concept and have had a chance to really express their views, and to assist them (especially those who do not have such a clear voice) in expressing their views clearly. Then, on 22 March there will be a big Consultancy/Conference/Exhibition. We will be erecting a large circus big top on the grass land between the 2 schools. The walls of the marquees and exhibition boards will be covered with the children’s artwork, which will also be displayed, along with video messages, via projection onto 2 large screens. “Decision-Makers”, such as Members and Officers of Somerset County Council and Mendip District Council, members of the West Mendip Specialist Strategy Group, local Councillors and the DFES have been invited to come and view the children’s exhibition and attend a presentation by the children of their views. We hope very much that the Decision-Makers will listen carefully to the children’s views and take them on board as far as humanly possible. A Report will be created on the Project. This should be available from the end of April, if anyone would like a copy. Top of pageAnti-BullyingChildren's World has also been running more of its very successful
Anti-Bullying Workshop Days
at
More on our anti-bullying days
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Carer ChildrenA series of
Workshops for
"MIAR" for children who act as carers and A Video Filming Session for Frome Social Services for "looked-after" children have also been held. For the "Miar" Workshops, two films were made - one using masks which explored emotions, and the other, a more light-hearted piece, which was shown at their Christmas party. The Workshop for Frome Social Services was a video record of a consultation held by them for "Looked After" children. This video is to be shown at a future Social Services conference. And more ... and more
Top of pageOur six-week
Puppetry and Integration workshop Weeks Tour will be starting at the beginning of the Summer Term, working for a full week in
More on our innovative Integration Weeks
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We have been invited yet again to run a
Puppetry and Integration workshop Week in Liverpool with a mainstream school and 2 special schools there, and this will take place during the week of June 13 2005. TransitionWe currently have 5 weeks remaining unbooked at the end of the Summer Term, and we expect these to be filled with commissioned work (probably addressing bullying) and by further Transition Workshops.
More on our Transition Workshops
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PlaydayWe will be running a large Playday for Escape, probably on 30 May, to celebrate their 5th birthday, and we will probably be undertaking various playscheme work for children with special needs during the summer holidays. Children's FestivalsWe will also be running 2 lovely Children’s Festivals during the summer holidays:
THE 5TH BRISTOL CHILDREN’S FESTIVAL 29 July-1 August
THE 24TH GLASTONBURY CHILDREN’S FESTIVAL 5-8 August
Information on the Festivals - more on performers soon.
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We urgently need volunteers at both Children’s Festivals to help run the inflatables, badge-making, face-painting, etc. Anyone who can give us 4 hours of their time, may bring in up to 3 children free of charge on that day – the perfect way to give your children a marvellous free day out, while helping a most worthwhile charity and making sure that the event is safe and wonderful. And the new venture!So, as you can see, it has been a very busy and fruitful first half to the academic year, and, as if that were not enough, we are also very busy planning and setting up ... Four-Month Tour of Sri Lanka to work with children who have been affected by the Tsunami. Our previous experience In 1999, during the war in Kosova, we became very aware of the children’s suffering, and we very much wanted to take performances, workshops and games to them once the war was over. To do this (because Children’s World’s geographical remit does not permit working outside the UK) we set up a Sister-Charity, Children’s World International, and in October/November took a very successful 6-person Tour to Kosova and Albania. Since 1999 CWI has lain mostly dormant, as all our energies had to go into keeping Children’s World’s West Country work with special needs children going, though the Charity did undertake 2 visits to Northern Ireland during this time, running cross-community workshops with both Protestant and Roman Catholic schools and special schools. Tsunami changes our plans We were already talking about trying to resuscitate Children’s World International, perhaps to take a Performance, Workshop and Play Tour to South Africa to work with children who had suffered from the Aids epidemic, but when on Boxing Day we heard about the Tsunami, and over the following days realised how much suffering there had been and how much suffering there was going to continue to be for some time to come, we decided that we definitely wanted to take a Tour to South East Asia. We are currently fundraising and planning a 4-month Tour to start in September 2005.
Letter about the tour The March recce tour.
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 Arabella Churchill  
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Giving