Y6 – Remembrance assembly

Y6 created a remembrance assembly and shared that with the local community. This includes children using the green screen and reaching out to members of the public. The assembly is on the website and even got a shout out from the armed forces. The aim for this term is to come up with a new project and Lisa will be working closely with me to do this.

2020 Remembrance Day Assembly

Y5 –  Local care home link

Y5 attended Cherry Tree and sang carols to them, made Christmas cards and wrote personalised letters to each of the residents there. We raised money and provided them with food hampers before Christmas- EYFS was involved in this part too. All distanced too! I spoke to Nic Cusworth (governor) and she’s is helping with a community raffle (starting with parents in the class, then school and local area) – so you can talk about governor involvement there, and children decided they wanted the proceeds to go towards residents for a tea party and one for the children in class 7, so they can enjoy this live with the residents – via zoom, for example. We would hope to meet their personal pen friends in the summer term.

https://roughwoodprimary.or

Nemesis Project

Y4 – Outdoor classroom

Y4 have decided to make the most of our wonderful landscape by transforming an area into a usable all weather outdoor classroom. Mr Ducker, Mrs Graham and Nathan have all had a co-creation lab with pops outdoor adventure discussing the build. Following this Mr Ducker and Nathan had numerous site visits discussing the practicalities of our plans. Following a successful visit, the work has already started clearing the area to make it safe. The next step is to have a co-creation lab with pops, parents and children to discuss their ideas and what they want. The children have visited the site, discussed ideas and created some learning for their topic files to support this. As well as developing our outdoor area Y4 are currently taking part in the schools linking project where we have been asking questions and developing a ‘penpal’ situation where we can send letters to each other. As well as that, we aim to continue with our partnerships with the Ruffi school in France and a brand new partnership with a school in the middle east aiming to get children collaborating with others across the globe.

We have also applied for funding through a local council grant scheme. . .

Y3 – Rain Rescue 

Y3 aim to work closely with local animal rescue, Rotherham Animals in Need. They have already made contact with the charity and hope to get a co-creation lab sorted with Supervisor Zoe after the national lockdown. We have discussed a whole school assembly with the charity, potential site visits, fundraisers to raise money for food, bedding and other vital needs the animal charity require. We have discussed linking this to our learning by writing letters to various companies and people to help support us with that.

KS1 – School improvement project

KS1 have decided to improve facilities on the KS1 yard and are currently at the planning stage of this. Due to the restrictions before Christmas, it was hard to have parents and helpers in to fully ignite the project. The aim is to create break out areas and enhance learning discreetly through educational based fun games. The plan is to hold a co-creation lab as soon as the children get back into school after the February half-term.

Year 1 have also expressed an interest in helping the homeless scheme in our local area, this could be fundraising or donations to help the homeless people in need.

The current state of KS1 yard, no enrichment for the children, no games they can learn and express themselves.

https://www.shilohrotherham.org.uk/ 

Foundation – Working collaboratively with local care home Cherry Trees.

At Christmas foundation raised over £150 from raffles and used the money to buy residents presents as some of the residents don’t have any family or friends! The children and parents (socially distanced of course) dropped them off and sang Christmas carols outside for the residents who watched on through their windows. (awaiting pictures and videos) The project is ongoing and we are looking at doing something for them to celebrate Easter.

NEMESIS in Year 5 and Chestnuts

The Steam Street project has a website!

STEAM STREET is a unique, innovative, forward thinking street in the middle of a school that will allow for pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) to experience different forms of paid employment, develop skills for working life and build cultural capital.  They have 193 students on roll currently. The street is accessed by most students on site 160. 13 classes. Students from age 5-16 This has been due to COVID. The street has also seen new job opportunities be appointed to over the past term. A range of jobs can be found in the steam street website that is beginning to take shape.

Why is it important?

Only 3% of young people with SEND in Rotherham will progress into paid employment (7% Nationally). We want to improve that statistic, raise aspirations and widen horizons; enabling every learner to leave school with the confidence, ability and desire to make the world a better place.

How can you get involved?

Are you an innovative business with a social conscience? Can you offer your ethos, uniform, opportunities for work experience, internships or apprenticeships? Can you enable opportunities for your staff to come and work alongside our young people?

Visit the school website

NEMESIS Project Twitter @SteamStreet

School Twitter @AbbeyLearning

During this term, the children and staff at Greasbrough Primary School have continued to work extremely hard to improve their school and community. 

Foundation Stage NEMESIS Project: Key Workers

We have been learning about different job roles as part of our topic ‘What Will I Be When I Grow Up?’ We have learnt that lots of people help us by doing their job. We are going to create some artwork and write letters to people who have been ‘key workers’ during the pandemic to say thank you.

We will be sharing our work with staff at Morrisons and Northern General Hospital in Sheffield, among others.

Key Stage One  NEMESIS Project: Developing our outdoor classroom 

Our class Nemesis project aims to improve our school grounds by creating an outdoor classroom for Key Stage One. 

The children in Key Stage One started their project by discussing what was currently in our school grounds and how we could improve them. They were then challenged to create a map of their outdoor area as part of their remote learning. 

Now the children are contacting local businesses who can help them develop their ideas and support them with accessing the materials they need to bring their designs to life! 

Y3B NEMESIS Project: Nursing Home

As part of their topic Year 3B is looking at how to support their local community and working building relationships with our elderly. Our school took part in a national drive to boost the morale of those isolated in care homes over Christmas. These were then taken to the nursing home to be distributed amongst the residents along with some breakfast items. Children then stood outside the care home and sang ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas.’

Over Easter we will continue to build relationships with our care homes and look at how we can support them.

Y34L  NEMESIS Project: Road Safety

In the term leading up to our second national lockdown, the traffic around Greasbrough Primary School at the beginning and end of the school day steadily increased. We have decided to try and do something about it! 

The children and their parents are now going to look at ways in which they could improve the traffic in the local area. They hope to improve the safety around our school as the year goes on. Watch this space… 

Y45B NEMESIS: The Greasbrough Park Project

Last year, Y4 at Greasbrough Primary School started a project to support their local park. This year the park received some incredible news as they gained a Green Flag Award. Children and staff made sure that their learning was on display in the park to demonstrate how they were involved to those visiting the park and have continued to help keep the park tidy. 

Our new Year 4/5 children are now looking at ways to continue to improve their local area. While remote learning, they have been asked to visit their park and have a look at what they could see. They reflected upon what was already in their park and who might visit before being asked to think about ways that they could improve. 

The children have now started to look to the next improvements they wish to make and how they can make their parks a safer place to play. Once again, we will be working with The Friends of Greasbrough Park and Rotherham Park Rangers and are hoping we can all meet again in person soon! 

Y56AG NEMESIS: Donation

Last year, Y5 began a project looking at supporting local food banks by donating essential items. Unfortunately, with the arrival of the pandemic and the impact of lockdown, our partners have since closed their doors. Year 5/6 will now focus on how to create a sustainable donation centre in their school. 

Y6S NEMESIS: Wentworth Estate

As a link with science and our current topic, I have contacted children in the class to create a group to chair our project. It has been decided that we are going to look at contacting Greasbrough Fisheries and Wentworth Woodhouse at adding bird watching locations to Greasbrough Dams.

Whilst in its infancy, the children on the committee are enthralled by this opportunity. Watch this space…

Starting point 

As part of our class text ‘Meet me by the Steelmen’ the children visited the steelmen and the steel heart in Meadowhall. They became interested in the local history and in particular the history of Hadfields, the steel factory that was knocked down on the site where Meadowhall now stands. 

We discussed the plans for the steel heart to be put inside a statue to be erected in the place of where the two cooling towers one stood. The children then researched further into the steel history of Sheffield and we watched a video of the towers being demolished. 

Alongside this, we studied healthy eating as part of our science topic and the effects of having a healthy or unhealthy diet. 

This linked well with the steel heart because there was an initiative to raise money for the British heart foundation in exchange for having a name engraved on the heart. 

Children’s ideas 

The children were keen to promote healthy living and healthy hearts and this led to raising money for the British heart foundation. This then led to the children wanting our class name engraved on the steel heart. We discussed fundraising ideas and decided that this should be an active challenge because this promotes a healthy lifestyle and exercise. 

As a class, we decided to take part in the skip a mile around the school grounds. 

Community members 

We sent class emails to the BHF to make them aware of our project and then we had a video call meeting with the head of the fundraising department for Rotherham. She gave lots of useful ideas about fundraising and lots of i ainformation about heart disease and healthy living. 

The school community were invited us to get involved and help to raise money by donating to our fundraiser event. 

Outcomes 

The children raised over £150 and have had their name engraved on the steel heart. They were featured in the local newspaper. They continue to raise awareness of the importance of a healthy lifestyle and have plans to create leaflets and posters to promote this. 

We started in the year 2019/2020 with the idea and concept to further support our local community and families to ensure that we try and contribute towards minimising poverty and hunger issues. During the year we have set up an accessible food bank donation station within our FS1 provision that parents and carers from across the whole school can drop off any donations. 

We have worked closely with our local Co-op food store in the village as well as with a lovely lady who lives in the community who heard about what we were doing and then has donated over £300 towards our food bank and hampers for some of our families. 

We have liaised and supported a local homeless charity Shiloh donating food parcels, clothes donations and money. We have promoted the charity on our school website and through regular newsletters and bulletins.

During the winter of 2020, we decided to start a get warm for winter coat appeal and encouraged any parents/ children to donate their unwanted coats so that any child/ adult could have access to a warm coat during the winter. We had some families within our school ask for a coat donation and the rest we took to the local charity shop for other families to make use of. 

As an extension of all the work, we have and continue to do to support our local foodbanks and families. The children’s interests during the last term around animals has led us on to thinking about our local wildlife and how we can help protect them and keep them safe. As an extension to the No poverty theme we have in 2021 started to look at how we can support the local wildlife. We have participated in the big school bird watch week and looked at varying birds that we might have within our community. The children made their own bird feeders and had fun exploring ways to keep helping our local community and environment. 

Below are some pictures we have captured along the way. We are continuing for the rest of the year to support any local charities and fundraising events in order to continue to make a difference, reduce poverty, world hunger, and look after our local environments and wildlife. 

Starting point 

As part of our class topic ‘Survival’, the children researched about the impact of homelessness within South Yorkshire and the UK. Alongside this, we have been reading our class text ‘The Outlaw’ which is a story about Robin Hood. We had discussions about whether Robin Hood was a good or bad person and why it is important to help people in our community. Our PSHCE sessions have been based around keeping healthy and our P4C sessions have been discussions around how COVID-19 has impacted different people. Furthermore, the children enjoyed these discussions and we felt this linked well with our ‘Survival’ topic therefore, we set the target to support young people who are less fortunate than us. 

Children’s ideas 

The children were keen to support the homeless over the winter period and wanted to focus on collecting donations and to include the Rockingham community. We discussed fundraising ideas but the children were more enthused about collecting donations. We decided to create a shoebox full of different items to support those less fortunate through the winter months.  

Community members 

We sent class emails to Kurt Sullivan, who works at Depaul Charity, who was involved with our NEMESIS project last year. Kurt helped us develop our ideas and suggested what donations to collect. Kurt took our donations for the Safe At Last charity who shared the donations with the young people they support who are homeless in South Yorkshire. Also, we looked at other charities which were more local to Rockingham and we gave some donations to the Kimberworth Park Food Bank who created hampers to give to families in need.

Outcomes 

The children collected a huge amount of donations and shared them with young people around South Yorkshire and the local community. 

We started the year wanting to develop our outdoor area so that the key stage one children had a safe, engaging outdoor area for rich learning opportunities. We started with a grassed area outside of the key stage one classrooms. 

Children’s Ideas

We discussed our thoughts with the children who were keen to develop the area, it quickly became their project and something that they were extremely excited about. We asked the children to draw plans and think of some ideas for their new outdoor area. Here is what they came up with:

• A table for learning 
• Counting logs 
• Vegetable and flower patches 
• A mud kitchen 
• A reading area 
• A pond
• Learning tent 
• Tyres 
• Trim trail
• A Maths/Literacy shed for learning

Community members

To support the development of our outdoor area we have reached out to members of the community to donate items. Mr Parkin sourced large tractor tyres from a local farmer for us to use. We contacted Potteric Carr and Wentworth Saw Mill, who kindly donated logs and pieces of wood to create a log trail. We have also worked with Wingfield School who donated wood chippings to go around our wooden planters.

Outcomes

So far we have created an outdoor space for the children to use for learning. We have stepping stones, planters, a mud kitchen, a table and stools and tyres for planting and ones even big enough for us to sit on! Going forwards we would like to use our community and raise money to buy a learning shed for all of our learning resources. The children will create their own ideas how to raise the money and we will carry this out to get closer to our goal.

The Year 8 pastoral team saw the potential for NEMESIS to tie in with South Yorkshire Police’s Inspiring Youth programme as it fits well with the ‘community’ element. The group all had different ideas and, through doing the NEMESIS ‘traffic light’ activity from the resource bank to spot local problems they decided they wanted to have more jobs for young people because they wanted to develop their skills, make some money, meet people, gain work experience and have fun! 

OPERA activity to co-decide which to put into action

The project that came out of the OPERA activity

Initially, students were thinking of 3 different projects:

Pet sitting

The students want to trial this on friends and family and let their services spread through word of mouth. So far, they’ve created a form for people wishing their pet to be sat to complete and have thought about how they can offer a good service through caring for animals. 

Babysitting

This idea developed because one boy’s Dad works with some single parents and would tell him how difficult it can be to find childcare.  The boys want to start by babysitting the children of friends and family and are creating an application form for potential customers to fill in.

Snack service in school

One group noticed that school staff are busy and the school is on 2 sites so what began as a potential delivery service got focussed onto a drinks provision service, with biscuits, for busy school staff. 

1, 2, 3 action!

Students analysed what skills and resources (resources or otherwise) each project would need. They then identified which they could do themselves and where they might need help to work out what and who they needed to move their project forward.

Pet sitting group’s analysis of skills needed to carry out the project

The students finally settled on doing one project – the snack service. They thought it would be useful to find out what drinks and snacks they wanted and how much they would pay so they carried out market research amongst staff to find out what people want and how much they’d pay, noting that vegan biscuits would be welcome. 

The questionnaire used to find out what teachers would want from the snack service

They had their first café in February 2020. They were positioned by the entrance to their school site so that staff could easily grab a tea or coffee on their way in at the start of the day and at the beginning of the break. Staff really appreciated this service and more sessions would have taken place if the covid crisis hadn’t happened. Speaking to the students before the session showed that they were able to talk about the competences they were developing and they were astute in noting that even if they didn’t achieve what they initially set out to or couldn’t carry out their project they were still developing useful skills. They specifically mentioned reflection and teamwork.

I really enjoyed working with the children on this project and especially how one group of students, in particular, included a student who was in a different social circle to and academically weaker than them so that he could take part. They showed real empathy, compassion and sensitivity, which is so important in these social projects.

Jen Wall

During the coronavirus crisis, the children and staff at Greasbrough Primary School have worked extremely hard to support the local community.

Y12 NEMESIS Project: Supporting Animal Welfare

Our class NEMESIS project, linked to our Fur, Skin and Feathers topic, aimed to stop unnecessary hunger for animals. The children decided we could do this by helping animal charities/non-profit organisations that look after homeless animals.

Before coronavirus school closures, we enjoyed a fantastic animal care workshop in school, run by the PDSA charity and this inspired us to collect food, toys and accessories that could be made into hampers for unfortunate animals. We wrote to our families and emailed local businesses to invite community participation in our project. In addition to our own collecting, we gained contributions from Jenatex Dance Wear, Tesco (Rotherham), Morrisons (Parkgate) and Pets at home (Cortonwood).

Due to lockdown, and PDSA being unable to collect from us, we democratically decided to pass our contributions to a local animal shelter. We were aware that one animal shelter was appealing for contributions – this actually turned into two, as we managed to pass on our items to both Netherlands Boarding Kennels and Barnsley and District Animal Welfare in one visit.

Y5 NEMESIS Project: Supporting People’s Access to Essentials

Before the coronavirus crisis, we had planned to start a project with our local food banks to increase their supply and promote food banks in our local community.

 After school closures, children from Greasbrough Primary School and Roughwood Primary School had their first co-creation lab with Andrea Brookes from Clifton Learning Partnership. It was amazing to hear about the work currently being done to support the CLP and work together to develop ideas.

Here the children found out that, not only had the reliance of food banks increased due to people losing their jobs in the pandemic, but that basic essentials such as soap were not being included in food parcels. This was vitally important to protect the community during the coronavirus pandemic.

Over lockdown, we have worked with the Clifton Learning Partnership to provide excess food to support families who are struggling. We will now continue to work with the Clifton Learning Partnership and LocoSo to provide soap and shower gels for those who need these essentials. Watch this space…

Foundation Stage NEMESIS Project: Grow Your Own

As many in the UK struggled to access food due to shortages in our supermarkets our foundation stage decided to take action and grow their own. During the school closures children used their daily exercise allowance to walk to school and collect a growing pack.

This included soil, seeds and pots so that they could be grown both inside and outside the home. We hope that the children can not only grow enough to feed their families but will also be able to donate some of what they have grown to their community to support those who are most vulnerable.

Key Stage Two NEMESIS: The Greasbrough Park Project

Last year, Y4 at Greasbrough Primary School started a project to regenerate their local park. What they did not know is what an important contribution they would make to their society a year later… 

Over the coronavirus pandemic, the park has been a sanctuary to many who have been able to use it to get outside their homes, take exercise and enjoy the sunshine. Their hard work, along with the hard work of the Friends of Greasbrough Park and Rotherham Park Rangers, has meant that people can go for a walk, gather in government allowed groups and has even meant that people can access herbs and spices for cooking at a time when supermarkets were empty.

This year the wildflowers which Y4 planted came back and made some beautiful flower beds and the litter picking which had taken place before the crisis made it a tidy place to be. As we get back to normal, children will now continue to clean their park, plant new shrubs and are working with Sheffield Forgemasters to create a litterbug to promote recycling in the park.

This is a project which we look forward to developing for many years to come.

Students from Rockingham Junior and Infant School in Rotherham have been working on various NEMESIS social innovation projects, including tree planting and supporting the homeless. Children, parents, teachers, and members of the local community worked together to improve the local community. They also collaborated with students from other schools locally and abroad, to discuss social innovation ideas.

Supporting the Homeless

Year 3 students began NEMESIS project of raising money for the homeless. They were looking to develop a sustainable project that would continue to support others. They worked with Safe Haven, The Light House project and Shiloh to develop a strategy of support.

A speaker from ‘Safe at Last’ visited the school to talk to the children about homelessness. The children learned about how and why some people become homeless and how they might feel. Then, they discussed what they would take with them from their house if they were going to leave home, prompting some interesting discussions and ideas for the project.

Tree Planting

The Year 3 children at Rockingham and fellow Willow Tree school Greasbourgh have been working with parents and Craig McCrindle who is supporting the schools in planting trees in the area. The students first looked at how to plant trees within their own environment to create an orchard.

Then, they went with their parents and local Councillor Elliott to plant trees and improve the community and environment. The children thought about creating a vision for a better world, having resilience, and working with others in the community to enable them to build positive relationships.

Collaboration with other NEMESIS schools

These students worked with their local community and collaborated with other Willow Tree schools, Roughwood and Greasbourgh. They also FaceTimed a school in Whitby to discuss their project, and exchanged letters with the students of CEIP Los Albares in Spain.

Opening letters from Los Albares

Rockingham School Website
Rockingham School Twitter
Rotherham Council Twitter
Trees for Cities Twitter

Students from Herringthorpe Junior School in Rotherham have been working hard on their various NEMESIS projects. Children of all ages in the school, along with parents, teachers and members of the local community have come together to make these social innovation projects come to life.

Respecting Local Wildlife

The students looked at some of the issues happening right now with deforestation.

They discussed both the positives and the negatives, and recognised that animals in their local area are in danger due to people not recycling and their habitats being destroyed. Year 3 students came up with some great ideas about what their NEMESIS project could be.

The students wanted to help local wildlife, starting with the birds. They published letters to try and persuade the manager of local Clifton Park to allow them to put up bird houses.

Ideas to house and feed local birds

Then it was time to design their bird houses for the local park, using the grid method to calculate the area of the park. After a storm in South Yorkshire, the students considered that many birds lost their homes. They also created bird feeders to help feed the birds as part of the project.

Herringthorpe Junior School twitter
Go to the school webpage

If you would like to be the next school to join the team of NEMESIS schools please fill in our  contact form or email us at hello@nemesis-edu.eu

If you would like to read more about our projects click here.

Are you a social innovator who would like to collaborate with the schools in your area? Click here for more info on how to become a mentor.

Roughwood primary school in Rotherham have been working away on their NEMESIS projects. Children of all ages in the school, along with parents, teachers and members of the local community have come together to make these social innovation projects come to life.

Acorns visit to a nursing home

One of Roughwood Primary School’s main goals for the NEMESIS project is to create sustainable partnerships between different communities. This was kickstarted by visiting the residents at Cherry Tree Nursing Home. The younger students from Roughwood enjoyed singing nursery rhymes – everyone joined in and it was a lovely afternoon. Plans were made for the school to continue working alongside the nursing home, perhaps including craft activities, picnics, nativity performances and more.

Helping the homeless

Around Christmas time, children from Class 6 donated 25 bags of clothing to the YMCA at St John’s Green, who donate proceeds from selling the clothes to the homeless.

Members of Class 6 have also worked tirelessly to persuade their families and members of the public to donate sanitary and hygiene products to help the homeless people of Rotherham. They asked staff at My Place (a drop in centre in Rotherham) which products would be most useful and wrote letters to parents asking for donations.

 

“It feels really good, doing something for somebody else. It makes you feel really proud that you could help!” – Imarni, Class 6

Other NEMESIS projects in Roughwood include transforming an outdoor space into a peaceful reading area with the help of their gardener, Mr Staveley; making bird feeders to bring to a local park and feed the birds; discussions about fundraising for and establishing a LEAF centre (Leading Endeavours for Aspirational Futures) with a radio campaign.

Roughwood School NEMESIS Blog

If you would like to be the next school to join the team of NEMESIS schools please fill in our  contact form or email us at hello@nemesis-edu.eu

If you would like to read more about our projects click here.

Are you a social innovator who would like to collaborate with the schools in your area? Click here for more info on how to become a mentor.

Abbey school in Rotherham, UK, a school supporting children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, have come up with the idea of creating a ‘street’ in their school for their NEMESIS project.

‘Steam Street’ – an innovative experience

They have designed a street right in the centre of their school using one of the existing corridors to host a unique innovative experience for their children. Each shop will be sponsored by a local business that will provide their uniform and opportunities for work experience. The children already have George’s restaurant in Rotherham who have a passion in supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities. Fortem offer a strategic approach to the delivery of social value, transforming the lives of young people through apprenticeships and work experience and creating prosperity in local communities. They are currently supporting Abbey in finding business links and sponsors to support their project they have been working with the school since 2015. The school held a launch event on the 23^rd of January where numerous companies were asked to pledge their support.

On the street there is a gym, boutique, radio station, café and a restaurant. Children are employed on the street have to complete a CV. The governors and senior leadership team will then interview the successful applicants for positions. The children will be paid in points in which they can spend in the boutique or in the café. If children choose to save their points they can have an afternoon out at the cinema or choose from a range of experiences. The children have an HR manager and if they require any time off they have to make sure they seek advice and support. Some of the children have already experienced redundancy and have had to apply for another position.

A project to challenge the statistics

The percentages facts of children with Special Educational needs in Rotherham – only 3% of children will be in paid employment and only 7% nationally. Abbey School are working towards changing these statistics and changing the lives and futures of children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities.

Visit the school website

NEMESIS Project Twitter @SteamStreet

School Twitter @AbbeyLearning

Author: Jen Wall, Education Consultant and Researcher

Staff from the careers, pastoral and teaching teams in Stocksbridge High School, Sheffield, saw the potential of NEMESIS to offer enrichment to their children as an afternoon club. The project has come on in leaps and bounds since I first advertised NEMESIS to Year 8 (12-13 year old) children in assembly. The children were interested but initially unsure. However, after a few Co-creation Labs, activities on social innovation and ‘how to spot a local issue’, the group took part in an OPERA, a key NEMESIS co-creation activity. During their OPERA, they came up with their project idea – a group to support secondary school children’s social, emotional or mental health through socialising. This idea is something important to these young people, as noted by one of the project student leaders:

“This isn’t about us, this is about your future. 

We started this group as a way to help the youth of today’s society (people like us) with communication towards others and to help them understand they aren’t alone. This group was created by young bright-minded students who had hope for things involving mental health and knew there was a way to lower the loss of young people to it. I know there is more we can do but I’m hoping and praying that this group at least makes one or more people smile and helps them realise they have so many people to talk to. Just know you aren’t alone and are worth so much more than what the world gives you.” – Aimee, Year 8 student

‘Candlelight Community Centre’

The group chose the name Candlelight Community Centre, with the idea that young people can come to a safe space to socialise, belong and have fun. If they want, they also have the option of talking to the student leaders one-to-one. The student leaders are getting parents involved to bring, and help with, board games to help people relax and get to know each other. Caleb, a student leader in the project, spoke to me about their plans:

Jen: What are you doing in the project?
Caleb: In the project we’re helping kids get more confident because a lot of kids aren’t getting involved in anything.
Jen: How are you going to help kids get more confident?
Caleb: By playing games and talking to people.

They’re planning to advertise the Community Centre in assemblies and are excited about the first session on March 5th.

Candlelight Community Centre student leaders practising for assembly.

An evolving project

One student reflected on how the project’s changed over time:

“I find that our nemesis project will help many people. It started out small but then we started to come up [with] good ideas and found one we all thought was good. We put our minds to it and devised a good plan. It will not only help others but it also help[s] the members who created the new mental-health support club (candlelight) learn to work as a team and we have also made lots of friends. I entered the project to help people and have helped myself with confidence at the same time.” – George, Year 8 Student

George’s Traffic Light map to identify good, not so good and problem local areas

Working together to build confidence

Miss Plaskitt, who is enthusiastically supporting the project, commented that “the students have really got into the project and are so excited to get the ball rolling with their ideas. It has been great to see these students getting involved with this project and working together really well.” She noted that it was wonderful to see a different side to students as they get enthusiastic about something they’re interested in.

“I think that Nemesis is going to provide a great opportunity [to] help people in our school that struggle to make friends or even just socialise. This could help people to gain the confidence then be able to socialise and build up a friendship with the people that may attend.” – Tyler, Year 8 Student

I for one have been really drawn in by the enthusiasm and proactiveness of the students and am really looking forward to the first session!

If you would like to be the next school to join the team of NEMESIS schools please fill in our  contact form or email us at hello@nemesis-edu.eu

If you would like to read more about our projects click here.

Are you a social innovator who would like to collaborate with the schools in your area? Click here for more info on how to become a mentor.

Read the previous post

Being involved in the NEMESIS project has given the children a voice and an opportunity to make real sustainable changes,  at each meeting the children are given the opportunity to share what is happening in their classroom and what ideas they have gathered from their peers.

Our project is moving forward –

Another successful meeting held with our children, parents and partners. We thanked Ben Liddle for your support and guidance in creating designs for our project. The plans and designs far outweighed our expectations. We discussed a range of possibilities and everyone contributed to how the site could be used including the layout and the use of the rooms.

The children now have to make the decision whether to knock the building down altogether or extend the footprint of the existing project. At the next meeting we will present costings to the children to look at the positives and negatives of both decisions.

Children were making suggestions through group work, discussions and presentations – feeding back ideas shared with their class to enable them to feel confident.

Following our meeting we discussed a topic that had been brought up by the children around feeling safe when going to the local shop before and after school. The children said they feel worried when going to the shop as it is often full of teenagers outside in groups. One of our year 6 children said that they feel worried or intimidated.

We were very fortunate to have our local PCSOs at the meeting and Mrs Wootton Ashforth Designated Safeguarding Lead at Wingfield Academy explained that the children use the shop as a meeting place as they have nowhere else to go and that the majority of pupils at Wingfield are wonderful children.

At our next meeting children from years 9, 10 and 11 will be joining us to allow the children to work together and build a connection and work towards a positive transition for our pupils. The NEMESIS model has given the children, staff and partners real opportunities to collaborate giving the children a voice.

Children at Herringthorpe Junior School started their NEMESIS journey by sharing experiences, ideas and solutions between themselves and members of the local community. After much discussion about what local challenges the children face, we decided to beginning to combat the plastic pollution problem, which appears to be a global issue, by designing and creating our very own ‘bags for life!’ The children thought about who they may need to contact in order to support the project further, therefore the children began to draft emails and letters to ask other members of the community for their help.

By conducting this meeting, the children had the opportunity to think about the wider community and how they could make changes to have a positive impact on the local area. They had to think about how they could support each other to achieve a common goal and how they could communicate effectively with the wider community.

This morning, we have been so busy introducing our NEMESIS Project to six of our Year 4 pupils and a member of our local community.
We are looking forward to seeing what the project will bring! @nemesis_edu #recyclereuse #collaboration pic.twitter.com/d0SWrlEl1z

— Herringthorpe Junior (@Herringthorpe) January 9, 2019

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Location
Rotherham, England

Location

Rotherham, Reino Unido

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Introducing Project 525 at Rockingham school

At Rockingham, we want to instill in our students a vision for a better world. Furthermore, we want to teach them to help shape that world themselves through highlighting and finding solutions to problems in our local community.

On Wednesday the 9th of January we held our first meeting. We were very fortunate to have our Ward Councillor Mr Robert Elliott and Nicola Antcliff from Rotherham Council as well as our Local Community Police Officers Paul Newman and Helen Brooks join us. Reverend Diane Etchell from St Mary’s Church and Scott Foster from Wingfield were also present along with staff, parents and children from Rockingham Junior and Infant School.

At the meeting we made the decision to name our project ‘525’ which is the current address for the caretaker’s house. As a team we plan to turn this house into a provision for our children with Social Emotional and Mental Health difficulties. It will serve as a place to nurture some of our most vulnerable children.

We are currently brainstorming ideas on how the provision can best be used. The children came up with some fabulous proposals and discussed using the site as a youth club after school, running it as a food bank and hold parenting classes there.

We are open to ideas. The children would like to reduce crime, vandalism and have a place where vulnerable children can go and feel safe. We are trying to address the 2030 sustainable goals. Please see below!

Sustainable Goals

Are you a school member and do you want to implement Social Innovation Education in your school? Feel free to surf the web and drop us a line (hello@nemesis-edu.eu) or fill our contact form.

Are you a social innovator who – as those mentioned here- would like to collaborate with a school? Click here for more info on how to become a mentor.

‘525’  is the current address for the old caretaker’s house which is based at Rockingham Junior and Infant school. So the aim of the project is the renovation of the building. 

The main aim of the project is to turn the house into a provision for their children with SEMH difficulties or some of our most vulnerable children as a nurturing base. The project is large scale and will involve quite a lot of work as the building is currently derelict. After the first meeting they had representatives from the Police, Council, Church, Community, Teachers, Parents and Children they discussed how they can work towards the 2030 global goals through the use of the site.

All ideas came from all stakeholders, everyone had a common goal of working towards competency one, a vision for a better world. They discussed many problems/issues and potential solutions for some of the problems in their local community. Such as crime, vandalism, burglary, gangs, road safety, internet safety, environmental issues, damage etc.

Their Social Innovation practitioner and Architect Ben Liddle will begin to design and build a model of the house with the children, they will be looking at the safety of the site, layout and necessities such as toilets, kitchen and different spaces/zones for the children to use.

Visit the school webpage

Location

Rotherham, Reino Unido