On Monday, Year 3 talked about gratitude during their class assembly — an encouraging and important message to start out the week. As a class, the children have been discussing the importance of being thankful, including when they might say thank you, who they might be thankful for, and why it is important. 

To illustrate the importance of this message, the pupils acted out the story of King Midas, one of the Greek Myths they have been learning about this term. The familiar myth tells the story of the wealth-obsessed king who ruled a great kingdom, and who mistakenly thought his happiness was dependent on the gold he had. When granted a wish by the Greek God Dionysus, the foolish Midas wished that everything he wished would be turned to gold. This gift, of course, brought many problems as everything around him turned to gold, including the very food he tried to eat and, saddest of all, his beloved daughter. Finally realising that his great gift was actually a curse, the king begged Dionysus to lift the spell and from then on ruled as a good King. The moral of the story, of course, is ‘be thankful for what you have.’

The pupils then shared drawings of some things they are thankful for, including their homes, families, and cake! The assembly ended with a lovely prayer of gratitude, and the class handed out smiley faces to each person as they left, to help them remember to be thankful. 

During this morning’s assembly, Junior Council members spoke to their fellow Infants and Juniors about UK charity BBC Children in Need. Noting that over 3.9 million children and young people across the UK are in poverty, the pupils described how Children in Need is helping to address this issue in a variety of ways; among them, by donating money to food banks and community kitchens, and providing essential items to families in difficult circumstances. In Cambridgeshire, Children in Need helps to fund counselling services to young people, support work around trauma, stress and social justice, practical and emotional support for very young children with difficult family lives, and bereavement support for young people. Tomorrow, Infants and Juniors are encouraged to participate in a non-uniform day in which the minimum donation of £1 per pupil will go towards this worthy cause. Children can wear their own clothes, with an optional ‘animal’ theme if they wish. Seniors will also be having their own non-uniform day on Tuesday, in support of Save the Children’s campaign to feed children suffering hunger in East Africa. Seniors should bring in £2 or more in cash to hand in during registration at the start of the day.