The Archie Project
Year 6 visit to the Christmas session at Harwich Library Memory Cafe
A group of Year 6 children visited the Memory Cafe as part of inter-generational community link. The Memory Cafe was established earlier this year and has gone from strength to strength with numbers increasing every time. They made Christmas decorations and cards for the cafe visitors to take home. The children enjoyed chatting about all sorts of things they had in common, with the football World Cup being a popular subject. Singing Christmas songs also proved a hit and everyone agreed it had been a very special session.
Christmas Memory Cafe
As part of our Healthy Schools portfolio St Joseph's Year 5 pupils have been working towards us becoming a dementia friendly school. All schools in Essex are aiming towards dementia friendly status and we are proud to be at the forefront with our participation in The Archie Project and inter-generational reading as part of The Queen's Jubilee Reminiscence Reading Programme.
Children have been learning about different forms of dementia with a range of activities such as online meetings with professional dementia specialists, visits from staff working in a local care home setting, work books, reading books and educational board games. They have made links with a newly- formed local dementia cafe and also have the opportunity of using VR equipment to transport them back to the Year of the Queen's Coronation ( 1953) to provide a common thread of conversation with older people.
These activities support our learners to be equipped to be responsible, respectful, active citizens who contribute positively to society developing their appreciation of diversity and celebrating what we have in common.
Year 5 Harwich Library Dementia Cafe visit.
A group of Year 5 children visited the Dementia Cafe at Harwich Library. It was a wonderful opportunity to incorporate Essex Year of Reading with our Archie Project learning and meet people living with dementia in our community. Supporting inter-generational connectivity through mutually engaging activities increases our children's awareness of diversity. The children were able to discover what they had in common through sharing resources about childhood in years gone by compared to now. One in three young people know someone living with dementia and we are proud to be part of an enabling environment encouraging a proactive dementia friendly community.
The children shared art work and poetry they created for the cafe and reminiscence based literature which gave them plenty to chat about with visitors to the cafe. They also enjoyed meeting Jesse, the cafe's robocat!
