Community Ambassador
We are proud to have pupils at Rathfern Primary School connecting with their school and local community through social action and environmental projects. They have used their voice to bring forward their ideas on what they feel will improve, change and make a difference to their local environment. With commitment, drive and passion, they have implemented these changes through projects they have set up and worked on. They use the Sustainable Development Goals as a driver to work collaboratively as Global Citizens to achieve a more sustainable and better future for all.
The children have been involved in a number of projects since 2018:
Homeless Project: Children applied for a bid to make care packages for our local shelter in Deptford. The packages consisted of a sleeping bag, toothpaste, soap, flannel, toothbrush and hairbrush for the homeless. These were delivered to the Mayor of Lewisham at an opening ceremony of the sleeping pods for the Shelter.
Community Garden: The children were keen to create more green spaces in our school playground to help improve the air quality, biodiversity and health of our school community. They bid for funding with emphasis that the garden will serve as a space to learn. This included learning about how plants and vegetables grow, how to save water, to recycle and reuse materials. They made bird feeders, and an insect hotel out of Ecobricks, recycled wood and single use plastic bottles. They have built the space and use it daily for a variety of uses. To date we have harvested beans, potatoes, strawberries, lettuce and tomatoes.
Christmas gestures: Working on building stronger relationships within our neighbourhood, for the last few years the children create small Christmas packages for all our neighbours.
Street Trees Project: Working with our neighbours and local businesses the children raised enough money to plant 10 trees outside our school. This incentive was in collaboration with Street Trees For Living and Lewisham Council. The children have also added to this by planting flowers in planters at our school entrance with plants kindly donated by parents of the school.
Litter picking: Rathfern pupils taking pride in looking after our school and local environment.
There have been many other projects such as Anti-idlying campaigns, Macmillans, Fairtrade and Climate action protest to name a few. Children at Rathfern are change makers and take pride in being actively involved in making positive changes for their school and local community and will continue to be involved in social action projects that connect with their communities.
