St Jude’s is a small, friendly South London school with 210 pupils, who together walked an impressive 179 miles for Farm Africa, raising £165.74!

We spoke to David Winn, Deputy Head Teacher at St Jude’s and the staff lead on behaviour and PSHE, about why he chose to support Farm Africa and what made this walk such a success.

“These kinds of charity focused events are what we are all about as a school. We want to teach our pupils about doing the right thing and we think it’s important that global issues are brought to their attention so they can develop an understanding of what life is like for children in other countries. Activities like the Welly Walk raise the profile of important issues and bring everyone together for a common goal. They are also lots of fun, which is a really important part of learning.”

St Jude’s used the walk to set up a whole day of Africa-focused lessons and activities for the children, starting with a morning assembly with a speaker from Farm Africa. Teachers also used lesson plans downloaded from the Farm Africa website to devise a special maths lesson for Year Six, and an Africa day for Reception, where they created prints and even designed their own wellington boots!

“The children had lots of fun on the walk and some of our Year Three children enjoyed it so much that they decided to carry on around the course to clock up more miles during their lunch playtime… The Welly Walk was a very relevant way of getting our children to think about how the distance we walked was only a small percentage of how far children in other countries have to go to get to school or getting drinking water.”

“You could see by the way the children walked through gates that they were really excited and we were blown away by the generosity, with some children giving money from their piggy banks. We raised a total of £165.74 which is great for a small school like St. Jude’s which has lots of siblings.”

We’d like to say a huge thank you to all the staff and pupils at St Jude’s for such a wonderful event. We’re aiming to walk around the whole African continent with the help of schools like St Jude’s – you can follow our progress on our online map. If you’d like to take part please visit our webpage or get in touch with us at info@farmafrica.org or 020 7430 0440 for further details.

Click here to read our interview with David Winn in full in Education Today.