Harvest Celebration - Turn on the Tap

Our theme for this year’s Harvest Celebration was “Turn on the Tap”. This is a campaign organised by the international relief charity Samaritan’s Purse which aims to provide clean water to those in the developing world.
Parents supported this cause by sending in donations of 1p, 2p and 5p coins which the pupils used as part of an activity day on Thursday with the “Turn on the Tap” theme.

Throughout the school, lessons were based around the theme of water. The 6th Form looked at how difficult it could be for children in developing countries to get and transport water, by carrying a cup full of water over a very challenging assault course and trying not to spill it, whilst Room 8 tried to carry a container with 10 litres of water. That proved to be too heavy, so they reduced it to 5 litres and managed to carry it for 1 mile around the school field!  Room 7 found out how much water they had all used in the one day and took part in other activities such as “Hook a duck” as part of their maths lesson.

Lower down the school, they had great fun using water in a variety of ways such as making sparkle globes, bubble painting, more hook a duck and lots of pirate activities. Rooms 2 and 3 had lots of water play activities, made rainbow fish and really enjoyed a sensory story involving a huge umbrella adorned with fairy lights and rainbow fish. MSI had a  very sensory day of water activities from water sprays to foot spas and enjoyed listening to sounds of water and the water song.  All in all, a very good day which managed to get across to our pupils how precious water is and how much we would miss if we did not have it.  

During the day, classes also put coins into a “Turn on the Tap” water filter collecting box every time they used water, such as when they washed their hands, had a drink or went to the toilet!

During Collective Worship the following day, all of the collecting boxes were gathered in and we found out who had used the most water.  The 6th Form had used the most, but their excuse was that it was their day to run their Café enterprise and so it involved a lot of washing of hands! 

A total of £91.05 was collected from the boxes which will be sent to Samaritan’s Purse for their “Turn on the Tap” appeal. Thank you to all the parents and staff who kindly sent in the donations.

The pupils  watched a video from “Turn on the Tap” which explained how children had to walk anything up to 4 miles a day to collect water from a stream and carry it back to their homes. This water was usually very dirty and made them ill when they drank it.

By providing simple water filters the Turn on the Tap appeal was helping to improve the health of these children and their families.