DorePrimarySchool

Staff and pupils at Dore Primary have made it! We had a great Oxfam assembly to sum up the week, to remind children why we're doing the challenge and to celebrate their success. We had over 40 children taking part in the end, including some families. Their challenges ranged from sleeping on the floor (one of the most popular!) to giving up luxury foods to giving up computer games. The children who gave up things found it particularily difficult.

We met everyday and discussed how we were getting on. This 'meeting' became named by some children as 'the poverty club' and two children even made up a song about their challenge. On the last day we had a bit of fun with paint and painted our hands on a poster.

This was really significant because the children had committed to their challenge for the week, and if it had just been one person it wouldn't have been very noticable. Because there were many children involved, their hands worked together to make a difference. Our voices put together shouted out against the injustice in the world, hopefully making people stop and think about what poverty really is.

Below is our poverty pledge wall which can still be seen in the Main entrance.

Thank you to everyone who took part in this challenge from Dore Primary, including parents, staff and pupils. We have made an impact and together we can make a difference.

PS. You can follow my blog to see how I got on:

http://povertychallenge.21publish.com/KathrynEllis

It's been great seeing some of the pictures and reading the comments of children below.  I hope everyone is managing with the challenges.  I've actually doing OK now and whilst I do miss my sweets and chocolate and fizzy drinks, it's actually easier at the moment than it was at the beginning of the week!  I even donated my parent's evening Mars sweet to one of the children in my class!  I think I will try and eat less of these things when the challenge is over (but I won't stop completely)!

The challenge has definitely made me think about people less fortunate than me who are missing things much more important than sweets and chocolate.  I hope this week has generated a lot of publicity for Oxfam and that lots of funds are raised to continue the amazing work they do around the world.

I'm not in school today but I hear exciting things are planned for Celebration Assembly so enjoy that and the rest of your challenges!

Mr Smith

I asked the children 4 questions related to their challenges. Here are the responses:

1. What's the worst type of poverty?

*No food (14 children)

*No clean water (15)

*Poor Health (11)

*No rights e.g. education (13)

So all in all quite a balanced result, showing that the children are aware of different types of poverty and actually they're all as bad as each other.

2. What could you do to stop poverty?

-Give a lot of stuff away to charity.

-Send food and money.

-Do a walk/run for charity.

-Raise money.

-Go there and clean their water.

-Get them into school.

-Give them some food and blankets.

3. What could you do to stop poverty if you were the Prime Minister?

-I would build better houses.

-Poor people can have anything for free.

-Give everyone a job for free.

-Free rice.

-To take money off footballers because they get way more money than they should have so use the money to buy   and send food to people!

-Send cows to milk and eat.

-Make sure every village has a fresh water pump.

And finally...

4. What is the hardest thing about your challenge?

-Doing it for a whole week.

-Getting to sleep.

-Sleeping on the floor.

-The hardest thing was that it was not comfy.

-Not forgetting to do it.

I think the children are doing a superb job, and although some of them are enjoying sleeping on the floor, I think they are all realising that it is a challenge and they would not like to have to live like this forever.

Would you?

I met with the children today and the number seems to be ever growing. Other teachers in the school have been talking about the poverty challenge with their classes. Children are seeing others wearing the badge and all this is inspiring more children to get involved. Here's a snapshot of how the children are feeling today and the sorts of challenges they've been doing:

1 child sleeping on the floor

Some of their responses from today:

'My pledge is to sleep on the floor, don't eat sweets and don't drink fizzy pop. It is hard but I think it is worth it. I wanted to know what it felt like in poverty.'

'My challenge is to only watch telly for ten minutes. I am finding it quite hard.'

'I am giving up football. Hard!'

They're doing a fab job. Keep it up guys!

The children came back from half term enthused to do something for our poverty challenge. After reminding them in assembly what it was all about, challenging them to think about what life is like for people who are less fortunate than ourselves, we were flooded with pledges.

We have a pledge wall outside the staff room with lots of comments from the children about what poverty means to them.

Comments from the children so far:

'I'm feeling quite scared because sleeping on the floor is not very comfortable.'

'I'm a bit scared about not eating all those sweats and sugary stuff but I know I can do it!'

'I did feel scared because if you sleep on the floor it is easy for people to stand on you.'

'I'm also doing lowest food budget and tonight all i'm having is plain pasta!'

'I'm not sure whether I will be able to keep up this challenge for the whole week but I will try my hardest.'

'I should try and see what it is like to be poor because you should never take your things for granted.'

'I've already started no luxury foods by giving away my chocolate egg.'

'I'm doing this so I know how people who don't have enough money to buy a bed feel every night on the floor.'

'It is quite a challenge for me.'

Tune in tomorrow for more comments!

Miss Ellis