On a beautiful summer’s morning, eight Year 5 pupils set off to pay a visit to some of our nearest neighbours. The Royal Albert Homes is a retirement community of approximately 30 homes. Set beside the Cambridge University Botanic Garden, the houses are gathered around a central garden courtyard and residents have the opportunity to live independently as well as enjoying a network of friends. Every Wednesday residents enjoy a communal coffee morning and last week some of our Year 5 children were invited to join them to launch our link with the community, our new social responsibility project.

Pupils who have held positions of responsibility throughout the year, as form leaders, eco-committee members and school council representatives shared squash and biscuits with their new friends and exchanged life stories. Andrey said that he enjoyed talking to people who he would not normally meet and hearing their memories. All the pupils particularly enjoyed meeting Eddie, who brought out his photo albums cataloguing his years in the British Army and as a Royal British Legion standard bearer. Justin said it was fun to find out about things that your parents didn’t even know! Harbin agreed that learning about Eddie’s military service was really interesting.

Eva met Eva and they discussed the origins of their names. Everyone was keen to make a fuss of Ally, the working guide dog, and in turn Ally managed to get into many of the photographs! Sascha said, ‘I really enjoyed listening to all their stories and I loved meeting Laura and her dog Ally’.

Our pupils were all outstanding ambassadors for the Junior School, demonstrating the very best of their openness, curiosity, humility, friendliness and humour. Gill, the warden, is extremely enthusiastic about future collaborative projects and we look forward to building on the contacts we have made, sharing skills with each other and reaching out in friendship to our local community.

Alexandra summed up the visit by telling me, ‘It was great going there because we have made new relationships and now the whole Foundation can begin to do some projects together’. Look out for our social responsibility focus in the Junior School next academic year.

by Miss Bluck