COMMUNITY minded businesses and local residents have been thanked after answering a city headteacher’s plea for help during the ongoing pandemic.
Boxes of fresh fruit, cereal bars and store vouchers poured into Perry Wood Primary and Nursery School after headteacher Suzanne Beston took to social media in a desperate call for support.
The goodwill continued after the Government’s donation of 39 laptops proved insufficient for the school’s needs with unused laptops flooding into the St Albans Close school, part of the Griffin School’s Trust.
Around a fifth of the 392 pupils who attend Perry Wood Primary and Nursery are currently in school as children of key workers but staff were left shocked when some were coming in without water bottles or sufficient snacks.
After Mrs Beston’s plea for help, local residents, shopkeepers and supermarkets sent boxes of fresh fruit, cereal bars and vouchers.
“Marcus Rashford’s petition calling for children from low-income families in England to get free meals has done much to highlight this issue within our communities which I feel helped us when we issued our appeal,” she said.
“It’s difficult to learn if you are hungry, and we want to ensure our pupils are able to learn well and realise their full potential.
“At the present time 20 per cent of our 392 pupils are on site on a daily basis, and thanks to our wonderful local community, we can now ensure that they all have a nutritious lunch.”
As we all as the donations of used laptops, a local computer company trained school administrative staff to reconfigure the devices to enable access to the school’s remote learning platform.
“Pupils in larger families were unable to fully engage with learning because they only had one device to share between numerous children,” Mrs Beston said.
“The only access other families had was from a mobile phone. If we see pupils aren’t engaging in classes online, I contact the parents and ask if they need support with devices; the uptake and increase in engagement has been tremendous.
“We really treasure our partnership with our local community, they have gone above and beyond to support us during these difficult times – I’m really touched,” she added
