TrinityLearning Chair, Katie Doney writes about her time spent working with 6th form volunteers on a TrinityLearning project.

Earlier in July I helped with Make a Difference Week (MaD) at Larkmead School. This is a TrinityLearning Project, and it commenced last year. The idea is based on the ‘Toolkit for Happiness’ which was written by Taz Round (TrinityLearning’s Workshop Leader) during COVID. The Toolkit incorporates five main areas including nature, physical exercise, acts of kindness, creativity and rest and relaxation, which conveniently gives us a topic for each day of the school week.

There are child friendly activities for each topic, such as making bracelets to give to someone else, writing a card to thank someone, noticing nature around you, trying some guided relaxation and making a fidget keyring to reduce stress.

As MaD week is aimed at the 6 th formers, we met with a group each morning and taught them the topic and activities for the day, then they took over and taught the
same topic and activity to classes of Year 7 children. They worked with 180 children each day. Other than Experience Easter, MaD week is one of TrinityLearning’s most labour-intensive weeks.

It was lovely to see the confidence of the 6th formers grow throughout the week, and how much the younger children valued their input. I was encouraged by the way the year 7 children, who had varied abilities and skills, were supportive of each other.

It was good to experience this week for myself after hearing about it in Trustee Meetings.