Ponteland Community High School hosted a visit from a UK government Minister, Ivan Lewis, as part of their Big Read event.

Student Helen Smith, aged 17, sent us this report:

“Students at Ponteland Community High School took part in the Global Campaign for Education’s Big Read and travelled to Westerhope Primary School to get their pupils involved too.

We created various activities for the primary school pupils including a We’re Going on a Bear Hunt drama activity based on the book by Michael Rosen and storytelling in Spanish and French. We also worked with the children to help them create images of schools from around the world and create a list of items that should be in a less developed school. As a group we encouraged all the pupils to complete the Number 10 front door template and write some powerful words on them to send to Gordon Brown.

At Ponteland Community High School we’ve been learning about the Campaign through assemblies and many of our students have also completed the Number 10 doors and are ready to send them to Gordon Brown. Due to our interest and our enthusiasm for the campaign we were very lucky to receive a visit from Minister Ivan Lewis, the Under Secretary of State for International Development. He was very pleased to hear about how interested we all were in the development of education around the world and the work our school has done to help education in the developing parts of the world.

In 2000 world leaders made a promise to ensure that a primary education is provided for all children by the year 2015. Ivan Lewis was very optimistic that this is an achievable goal and was very enthusiastic about the challenge to make the change within education. After an enjoyable day I left feeling very privileged to have met Ivan Lewis and discussed these issues with him. We can all see now how important education is worldwide. I and the other students at Ponteland Community High School believe that together we can make a difference.”