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The Great African Welly Walk at St Jude's C of E school

Various photos of children from St Judes

 

Little girl pulling on wellies

St Jude’s C of E Primary School in South London had a fantastic time taking on the challenge of The Great African Welly Walk. Their 210 pupils together walked an impressive 179 miles for Farm Africa, raising £165.74!

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 from Farm Africa 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.

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 their welly 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."

At St Jude’s we place a lot of emphasis on our children experiencing things rather than just hearing about them, and this is how we like to teach our curriculum. The Welly Walk was great because we found lots of ways to integrate it into broader learning opportunities throughout the school using the lesson plans from Farm Africa.

welly boots

"The Welly Walk was a great opportunity to get the children into the bracing air, having fun while doing exercise, and when they got back into the classroom they were ready to learn.

As well as fitting into the National Curriculum, the Great African Welly Walk is also a great opportunity to teach pupils about the importance of exercise and keeping fit and healthy."

The idea of a welly walk is great because it’s both simple and fun. From a very early age wellington boots represent a sense of freedom, that you can go outside regardless of the weather and enjoy yourself splashing in puddles.

As part of their lessons, learning about Africa, the pupils wrote letters to children in Africa.

(Click image to enlarge)

When Farm Africa staff visited a primary school we had worked with recently, some of the children there had also written letters.

You could show these letters to your pupils, then ask them to write an imaginary letter to Alpha. Ask them to think about what they would like to ask him. 

Education Today interviewed David Winn to find out more about their fundraising. Read the full interview with David in Education Today.

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