Our School Values drive all that we do at Barnham- we INSPIRE, CHERISH AND BELIEVE. One of our school bible verses from John 15 v 5 says: Jesus said ‘I am the vine; you are the branches. If you abide in me and in you, you will bear much fruit.” We want to bear fruits and share fruits at Barnham.

Change Agents is what we call all of our Courageous Advocacy work at Barnham School. Children are encouraged to:

Firstly, identify a problem that they want to do something about.

Then use their voice to do what they can to make a difference. We stand up to injustice.

Sometimes we have to involve others who have a power to bring about change.

When our children complete a Change Agent action, they are able to put a heart/ log token in their class jar:

 

Once these jars are filled, the class are able to have ‘Change Agent Time’ and together work towards bringing about a positive change. They vote for what they feel passionate about as a class these ‘reward activities’ always benefit others.

Some examples of activities have included:

• Making bird feeders for birds during the winter months.
• Collecting items to make a hamper for the homeless which the class then presented to a visitor from The Benjamin Foundation.
• Litter picking around the community.

We have had several Change Agent Challenges running over recent weeks.

Firstly, we encouraged the children to celebrate ‘Fairtrade Fortnight’ by hunting out products in Supermarkets that had the Fairtrade logo on it. Children also learned more about what Fairtrade is all about and some children made some very informative posters.

Well done Change Agents!

We have also been encouraging the children to recycle more and set up better recycling bins in their classrooms which was part of the work around recycling week.

Harvest 2024 was a hugely successful Change Agent challenge. We encouraged the children to bring in boxes of cereal that we could donate to Thetford Foodbank. On a beautifully sunny day in October, we lined these up to make a domino rally effect! The youngest and eldest child in our school then pushed the box and they all came falling down as all children and staff watched in amazement and cheered them along! We were proud to donate 118 boxes of cereal to Thetford Foodbank!

During school holidays, we try to encourage our children to continue to be Change Agents. During October half term, we gave the children some ‘pumpkin-themed’ challenges and we were delighted to hear about the impact of these actions and enjoyed seeing some photographs too!

Our Advent Projects each year are another opportunity to rally the children in their work as Courageous Advocates or Change Agents. This year our focus is ‘Love-Joy-Peace’ and we can’t wait to see the challenges that our children will tackle!  

Please do encourage the children with their Change Agent work both at home and school.

Don’t forget we love to receive Change Agent stories and photos to the school e mail address admin@barnham.suffolk.sch.uk