A kaleidoscope of child-centre activities at St Bernadette's Primary School

One of the main elements emphasised upon at school is providing the best educational experience for the child. With this in mind, extra-curricular activities are regularly held at the San Gwann State School so as to make school life an enjoyable experience where each child is encouraged to participate. These activities help to balance the exam-oriented system. With the school year now coming to an end, one cannot but look back at this scholastic year and think of the numerous, varied activities that took place.

The most popular and the most recent activity was the Fun Day held at the school. By rotation, each group of students participated in the different events. To add to the enthusiasm, the parents joined in and this created a more lively atmosphere.

Religious events like Christmas, Easter, the Crowning of Our Lady and Eucharistic Day were organised in such a way so as to really bring out their true meaning while involving the whole school. For Christmas 400 students were dressed up as angels or shepherds, thus creating a wonderful atmosphere in church.

Prize Day was another important school event. The play, preceding the prize-giving ceremony, was ably acted out by the students who did their utmost to bring all the main animal characters to life.

Throughout the year, the school has seen a handful of prominent people namely Minister George Pullicino, directors from the local Education Division as well as persons from the Japanese and the Kuwaiti Education Division. The students had the opportunities to talk and discuss with the visitors topics such as the environment, educational systems and the different cultures.

The school garden was given an uplift and now looks more child-friendly. The benches were repainted in different colours and new endemic trees planted. The children now have a chance to enjoy this ambience during their break while helping to maintain it by watering the trees.

As from next year, the students will be able to avail themselves of the new school resource-library. This has been set up and the room now boasts of numerous books of different genres, kindly donated by parents or students themselves.

Bernie Kids is a very popular bi-monthly school magazine full of articles, letters and drawings. All these contributions come from the students for their peers to read and enjoy.

In preparation for both Eko-Skola and for an Environmental Project the school will be participating in next year, representatives from different classes met once a fortnight in the head's office and sat round a table to discuss and propose ideas to help and make the school more environmentally friendly. The idea behind this experience is to empower children and encourage participation. The suggestions brought up were then passed on by the students to the rest of the school during assemblies.

Moreover, an event happens at school at the start of the day when each class prepares a Morning Assembly. This activity involves each and every student over a period of time. These assemblies help to give a different start to the day as we believe that each day is different - each day should be a celebration providing a different experience for the child.

In all the activities the pupil remained at the centre of all the school's activity. Parent helpers were frequently present and most of the activities would not have been possible without their help. Also, one cannot help but notice how these activities help in the enrichment of the relationships that grow between children and their peers, children and teachers, and between teacher and parents. All these activities were pivoted around making the school-life at St Bernadette a happy learning adventure where each pupil is important and where the academic race is mitigated and transformed into a learning journey.