The pupils decided that from 30 November to 29 February they would all participate in in a 1.5km walk, whatever the weather. The daily distance covered was multiplied by the number of participating pupils as they aimed to walk 2427 km; the distance covered by a Syrian refugee en route to safety in Italy. The pupils call the project, The Rocky Road to Relief.
To find out more about what it is like to be a refugee pupils analysed illustrations from The Arrival by Shaun Tan. The children thought the book was based on evacuees from their World War Two topic , when actually the illustrations were based on the present lives of refugees. This shocked pupils and motivated them to take more responsibility for their walk and to get the whole school involved. They handed challenge sheets to each class in the school to suggest a more challenging way of completing their daily walk. Some of the challenges included the conga, bags on backs and 3 legged walk.
Linked to their rights based learning, pupils discovered that refugee children were being denied many of the rights they were due under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. As P7 commented, “Everyone is entitled to their rights, not just us!”
