As always, my week has been one of real excitement and variety.
Over the last few months, my children and I have been relentlessly collecting donations of Christmas decorations to sell and raise money to support children with SEN and toys to donate to the Dorset Children’s Foundation Christmas Appeal.
On Monday, the Awesome Archie team lugged a HUGE amount of generously donated second-hand toys to the DCF Treehouse.
I would like to thank each and every one of you for your kindness. Patsy is an incredible supporter of local children who, like the rest of us, may find Christmas more of a stretch this year. With the economic climate affecting everybody, it felt really good to know that Patsy would be able to put these donated toys to good use.
This week, I was also privileged to meet an incredible person called Dr Miriam Walker. Prior to joining the University of Winchester, Dr Miriam was a teacher in both primary and secondary special schools. For many years she was a coordinator for gifted and talented education as well as a SENCO. This sparked a particular interest in children with autism. Her doctorate in education has continued to consider autism in main-stream primary schools, particularly focusing on autistic pupil’s perceptions of how well they are understood. She then went on to developing a model that will hopefully help both teachers and pupils to gain a better understanding and awareness of the need for direct and respectful communication in order to form strong working relationships.
I could continue to go on and list the many incredible things that Dr Miriam has done, but I fear that might take up an entire blog post by itself! Needless to say, getting to meet Dr Miriam Walker was a genuine pleasure and I could have spoken to her for hours on end. I am delighted to say that we are now in contact and I am hoping that, moving forward, we will be able to assist each other in the support of children with autism.
Finally, today was a genuinely moving day for me at William Gilpin School. I volunteered this morning to help children with their catch-up learning and I was blessed to be invited to sit in on their remembrance service. Mrs Linsley told the children a story of people who had to leave their homes and stand up for what they believed in. She explained that many of those people who fought never managed to make back home and it is their sacrifices that we honour today. I have never heard the reason for celebrating remembrance told so sensitively and so appropriately for children and, as we sat in our two minutes silence, I don’t mind admitting that I had a quiet moment and a little tear. I was then invited to help the children in placing some metal, ornamental garden poppies in a special area of the playground where the flagpole stands.
I would like to thank Mrs Linsley and all the staff at William Gilpin School. Since I have been volunteering there, there has been such a sense of understanding, support, love and fun for all the children within their care. For a mum of a child with neurological differences, I know first-hand how rare this is and I am so grateful to each and every one of them.
I would also love to give special thanks to Linzi and Will, the proprietors of the gorgeous Dirty Gerties in Christchurch. Over the years they have been a tremendous support to Arch and I and they have generously gifted us a cash register to use in our fundraising sales. THANKS SO, SO MUCH.