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6 November 2004
The morning session of the seminar was opened with contributions about various aspects of their lives from four Year 6 children from a primary school at East Bridgford; a school with which a number of Nottingham
and Notts members have links through a scheme, related to the syllabus, that encourages links between children and older people. The two girls and two boys gave excellent presentations and, even more admirably, dealt superbly with the questions from the audience. Their Head Teacher and one parent of each child, who also attended, were told by the Chairman what a credit the children were to their school and their families.
Ethel Swann, a Branch member, is the recently retired Director of a Play Scheme for disabled children and their families. Ethel spoke about this work and her work with children through both HomeStart and SureStart schemes in Nottinghamshire, through her work with the Museum Service and as a City Magistrate during thirty years, sitting mostly on Youth and Family Panels.
Ruth Madison, is Head Teacher of Kirkby
Ashfield Primary School, which is in a former mining
village, and
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which has not benefited from outside
financing as have some of the larger villages in
Nottinghamshire. The school has a mix of children from differing social backgrounds, in some cases quite impoverished. Ruth gave a vivid presentation about her pupils and the caring ethos of the school. She illustrated the many ways by which the children’s experience was enlarged and their aspirations enhanced, which included day and residential visits away from the school.
Ian Sparks, was until 2002 the Chief Executive of the Children’s Society and is presently the Chairman of End Child Poverty, a coalition of over 80 societies working with children, including at least one of our affiliates, the NSPCC. Ian spoke of the 3.6 million children in the UK presently deemed to be living in poverty. He made those listening aware of how poverty induces not just poverty of aspiration, which can affect the children throughout their lives, but also poverty of language. He told of a research project that showed evidence of vastly depleted vocabularies in such children.
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