Exhibition at Lime Cafe, St Paul's Centre, Worthing

Twenty panels from the Reflections Nursery exhibition, 'Making Learning Visible' are on constant display inside and outside the glass cube at St Paul's Centre, Chapel Road, Worthing. 

Go along to the Lime Cafe for a taste of the exhibition if you missed it, or if you just want to revisit some of the children's experiences in the nursery over the last five years. 

Reflections Fundraising - what next?

A personal view

It's 5.30am and I'm up with my 2 year old watching BBC One World. The programme is about Kenyan teenagers visited by two teenagers from the UK. The Kenyan children run 2 hours to get to school and live in a small mud hut with an oil lamp to study by. The Kenyan boy got his first pair of shoes when he was 15 years old.

Twenty-five years ago I spent 6 months living in Kenya - the people were astonishing.  Warm, friendly, welcoming, modest, kind, intelligent and hardworking. They had so little but shared everything they had with me. I came home humbled and inspired - and then did nothing about it. A very typical story.

In 2007 we chose to focus our fundraising at Reflections Nursery on raising £20,000 to build a school in Ghana through Plan UK, an international charity.  We looked for an African project which would make a difference to children's lives.  We believed that education was a good place to start.  Three years later the school was built and we are now looking for our next fundraising challenge.

In the spirit of democracy we have provided families and staff at the nursery with three choices - the winning charity will be the focus of our fundraising efforts over the next two years. Of course, it is also in the spirit of pragmatism, as the families and staff will spearhead and contribute to our fundraising.

The choices are: Plan UK - sponsoring as many children as we can, probably in Africa; and two local charities; one of which is a charity Reflections would set up in Worthing to support children's creativity, the other is Ferring Country Centre, providing education for children about real food.

My view though is that we have so much in this country, and the developed countries in general.  The 'Skip Lunch, Save A Life' campaign of Save the Children sums it up for me - we wouldn't really miss a few calories at midday but the cost of our lunch could buy say, a fishing net for someone in a developing country which may mean the difference between life and death.

I completely understand why most people choose to fundraise locally - it must feel meaningful, especially if the benefits are visible. However, my vote (and I only have one) will be going to Plan UK this time. For me, in a global society, we should care for those who need it most.  And the results can be very visible - you just need to get up at 5.30am and watch BBC. :)  

Martin Pace

     
       

Making Learning Visible - Professional Development Day - 8th Ocotber 2011

Thanks to all involved in the Professional Development Day last Saturday.  What a great day - full of interesting questions and wonderful dialogue.  The delegates' feedback has been overwhelmingly positive so far, so many thanks to all who took time to complete our feedback forms. Thanks too, to all at St Paul's Centre & Lime Cafe for supporting the day.

Angela's artists' perspective on documentation went down very well (she got slightly better feedback than Martin for his overview of Reggio & Reflections!) and there were some lovely comments, mainly about the inspirational children's work.      

There were many comments about how motivated and engaged the staff team were - so a huge thanks to all Reflections' educators. 

We are looking forward to our next Professional Day in 2012.
 

MAKING LEARNING VISIBLE - An Exhibition of Children's Work in Worthing

There is still time to see our exhibition of 5 years of children's project work at Reflections Nursery.  The exhibition is in St Paul's Exhibition Centre, Chapel Road, Worthing until 4.30pm on 7th October.  Or, if you are an early years professional or primary teacher you are welcome to register on our Professional Development Day and Private Viewing on Saturday 8th October.  Contact susan@reflectionsnurseries.co.uk for details.