We had a wonderful day at Mossley mill today. We were invited by Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council to bring our school council members for a day out of class to take part in workshops. The children were wonderful ambassadors for Whitehouse with polite manners and full participation in all the activities. Here are some of their comments:
Evie- Today we travelled by bus to Mossley Mill. We went to get onto the bus but it broke down and we had to wait 25 minutes for another one. The second one was small and was just for us. It was great because it had backwards seats and tables.
Reece- When we eventually got there we went to our first workshop about mental health. One activity was looking out the window to practice taking notice of our surrounding to help us take notice and relax.
Rose- We wrote out name and painted them to remind us that we are all unique and also that we could do some art activities to relax us instead of always using technology.
Ella- Another activity was all about the importance of volunteering. We spent time replacing barcodes on jewellery and we then had to replace them with new ones so they could be sold to raise money for charities such as Oxfam.
Noah- We did a “Walking Debate.” We were in groups and were asked to move to different areas of the room to show our answers to certain questions. One of them was whether we agreed that the Star Wars films were better than the Avengers movies. I went to the corner for the neither!
Rebecca- After the voting, we wrote about what our future jobs might be. I wrote about becoming a famous footballer or else going into the police. We got our photos taken.
Jesse- I liked having our lunch together and chatting. We then went to a workshop about what we wanted to be when we grew up and what characteristics we thought were needed for certain jobs. I said I would like to be a drummer. We got photos taken with different hats on to show the various jobs we could do as adults.
Lewis- We went into the council chambers and got to sit in the big, leather, fancy seats. We were allowed to use the speakers to say our names and what school we went to.
Jacob & Daniel- We liked doing the workshop about how to make our neighbourhoods better for us to live in. We had to think about aspects we didn’t think were good like dog poo being on the streets or that old people have to try and cross without lights which can be dangerous. We also talked about teenagers who spray paint on walls and buildings and that they were destroying our neighbourhoods.
All in all, this was a very interesting day and our school council representatives learnt a lot about how we can all be working for good change in our neighbourhoods just like the way we are working in our schools.
Thank you to the council for providing us with the opportunity to expand our thinking and understanding about our communities.
