Children at St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School in Frizington are holding an Alice in Wonderland week starting on Monday 29th June. Learning will be based around author Lewis Carroll’s imaginative world and will culminate in a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party on 4th July to celebrate Alice in Wonderland Day.
Elizabeth Priddle, a class teacher at St Joseph’s, approached the Primary Business Partnership (PBP) for support in organising a mini enterprise project for the whole school to take part in during lockdown.
Elizabeth said ‘As you can imagine, the pupils and families who we support have been hit very hard by this current situation and so we want to provide them with as much support as possible. One of the projects was a whole school bake off but a major hurdle was providing the families with ingredients and a fun theme.”
The Primary Business Partnership (PBP) was pleased to help and as a result, the ‘St Joseph’s Mad Hatter’s Tea Party’ was conceived. The PBP team contacted Caterite, a leading independent wholesaler to the local catering industry, based in Cockermouth, which kindly offered to donate ingredients to the school. The team was grateful to Caterite for helping out with this project especially as the business has had to furlough staff due to Covid-19.
Caterite Sales Director Tariq Malik commented: “We have been working with St. Joseph’s Primary School for many years so we were delighted to be asked to help out with this great event for a very worthy cause.’
Children at St Joseph’s will spend the week learning all about the 1865 novel which follows the adventures of Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a subterranean fantasy world populated by peculiar and magical creatures. To finish the week, and to celebrate Alice in Wonderland Day on July 4th, the children will all bake a Victoria Sponge and hold a virtual Mad Hatters Tea Party. Visit their Facebook page to see their creations.
As the PBP’s main philosophy is to raise children’s aspirations within West Cumbria the children will not only be sending in their cake photos but will also be answering a series of questions relating to jobs within the hospitality industry, a sector hit hard by the Coronavirus.
In addition, the PBP has teamed up with The Lakes Home Centre and Listers to run a Lockdown Gardening competition. This is open to all Primary school aged children to show case things that they are growing at home during these difficult times. The winning entry will win a £20 amazon voucher for themselves along with a £50 voucher donated by The Lakes Home Centre. For more details please visit www.primarybusinesspartnership.zupe.uk or email info@pbp.org.uk to find out more details. The closing date for entries is June 30th.
The Primary Business Partnership is a free signposting and brokerage service for primary schools and businesses across Copeland and Allerdale. It builds on relationships between schools and businesses, mapping needs and matching with existing provision and developing new solutions with partners to address identified gaps. During lockdown PBP has been busy developing quizzes and other online resources based around the National Curriculum programmes of study to support career-related learning.
The PBP website www.primarybusinesspartnership.zupe.uk can be accessed by all primary schools across the county and is a useful signposting service for both local and national activities with free access to lesson plans and other resources.
If you are a school wanting to run a similar session or help with any topic work to support your pupils during lockdown, or a business willing to volunteer to deliver a similar initiatives or online support to our local primary schools, please contact the Primary Business Partnership team on 01900 824822 or info@ppb.org.uk.