During our discussions about how we wanted to spread Christmas cheer this year, we talked about how we would like to bring Christmas cheer, not only to our school community, but to families that are struggling. We suggested different ideas about how we could spread Christmas cheer and the most popular idea was to do a reverse advent calendar and donate the items to a local foodbank.

We decided to run a reverse advent calendar throughout the month of December and donate any items to a local foodbank. Miss Davies researched local foodbanks for us and discovered that St Mark’s Church where we hold our annual carol service, also runs a foodbank for families who are struggling every Tuesday. We contacted them and asked if we could donate the proceeds of our reverse advent calendar to their foodbank, and they were delighted that we had thought of them.

Two School Council members from Year 6 wrote a short assembly script to explain to staff and pupils what a reverse advent calendar is and why we have chosen to run one this year. We then wrote a message to parents to explain what kind of items would be greatly received by the foodbank. Alongside tinned and dried foods, we also suggested luxury Christmas items like chocolates and biscuits, as well as toiletries as we know how expensive they can be.

The school community strongly supported our reverse advent calendar and we donated a huge amount of food and toiletries to the foodbank at St Mark’s Church.