Christina's Big Day Out at the Primary RE Conference
On the 6th March, Emile, Miss Beckwith, Mrs Fletcher and I went to the 13th Annual RE Day Conference for Children at Ewood Park – Blackburn Rover’s football ground. We had to arrive at school at 8.20am and we drove there in Miss Beckwith’s car.
When we arrived we got our personalised lanyards and a gift bag. We looked pretty cool because the lanyards looked like the ones the teachers wear at school. Once we found our seats we got stuck into our activities.
Our first activity was thinking about what we considered essential to life…
This could be things like family, shelter, education, health, nutritious food and clean water. We also thought about the things that we might want in life but are not really essential…Things like holidays, the latest fashion, a new bike, a computer, fast food and fizzy drinks and lots of money to spend as you like.
We learnt that there are a lot more important things in life than what we first imagined and how we should be grateful for all the essential things that we have in life.
The slideshow began. We talked about people in different countries who have no choice but to drink polluted drinking water and how this can cause life threatening diseases.
Did you know that everyday almost 900 children die of diseases caused by contaminated drinking water? Due to this many charities have been set up, such as Water Aid, which raise funds to build wells and install taps in poor communities in Africa and Asia.
Next we made a bookmark and on the back we noted some helpful things we can do for Lent…I thought that I could do more jobs around the house.
Then, working as a table with other schools, we ranked NEEDS and WANTS in order of importance. We put families as the most important, because they care for you and are loving. For the least important we put fast food because you might want it but is it really going to benefit you? No….but family will.
We even made friends with the children from other schools who we were working with, this made our experience even more enjoyable.
As the slideshow continued, I learnt that people in less fortunate countries had to walk for three hours to collect water every day and that totalled a whopping 4 billion hours a year that they were spending collecting water, even though it wasn’t even clean water.
Then was our break. We had fun pretending we were commentating a Blackburn Rover’s football match, even though they weren’t even playing.
Afterwards, we did an activity that made us think about what rights children have and what the people in poor countries must think when they are drinking the dirty water. I was shocked.
Before we had our lunch we were lucky enough to go onto the football pitch!
For lunch it was either lasagne, chicken and leek pie or curry. I chose lasagne and it was delicious! For dessert it was either sticky toffee pudding or fruit – I chose fruit.
In the afternoon we made a poster reflecting on how blessed we are for everything we have in our life and how we should be grateful. I was very pleased with the final result of our poster.
Sadly, it was then time to leave so we got back to school in time for home time.
Emile and I had a fantastic day and are very grateful for the opportunity as it taught us and made us think a lot. Now I just wish we could do it all again.
