Youth & Family Gold Challenge is a new charity challenge, specifically aimed at schools, families, youth groups and 7-15 year olds. It aims to build on the excitement of London 2012 as all of the challengers take on Olympic and Paralympic sports to raise money for charity.

Those taking part can choose from three challenges (5 Sport Challenge, Family Activity Challenge and the 2012km Challenge). By joining the challenges, schools can also win a chance to run 100m in the Olympic Stadium watched by friends, family and a cheering crowd of 20,000!

There are currently over 20,000 registrations on the site and there is currently an incentive where for every 100 registrations, a school will receive 5 places in our Olympic Stadium Parade which will follow the route of the opening ceremony, and include charities, GB Ambassadors and celebrities. Find out more on the official site.

Lots of schoolchildren from across the country have already signed up for a national fundraising initiative organised by Honda (UK) and the charity Greenfingers. The pupils will take part in the ‘Get Gardening for Greenfingers’ fundraising campaign in March 2012 and the organisers are calling for more schools to join in.

Pupils are sponsored to do a variety of small gardening jobs for friends and family during the week. They could sow seeds, tidy up leaves or compost kitchen scraps. The challenge is to complete 10 small tasks for £1 each. Get Gardening for Greenfingers aims to raise a minimum of £15,000 for the first ever ‘Magical Play Garden’ funded by schoolchildren. Greenfingers will build the garden at a chosen children’s hospice in the UK. The initiative will also promote gardening in schools and raise awareness of safety in the garden.

To join in with Get Gardening for Greenfingers, please call Greenfingers on 01494 674749 or email info@greenfingerscharity.org.uk. The charity will need to know who will co-ordinate the activity in each school, the number of children taking part and in which years and whether the school would like to organise a ‘Stay Safe in Your Garden’ talk from a participating Honda Lawn and Garden Dealer.

Schools are invited to sign up for a charity world record breaking attempt for the most people signing and singing simultaneously. The event takes place on February 8, 2012 and it is being organised by SignHealth, the national healthcare charity for Deaf people.

The event is designed to raise awareness of deafness and the work of SignHealth, as well as acting as a fundraiser for the charity through sponsorship from businesses and a suggested donation of £1 for everyone taking part. Young people from all over the country and overseas will learn to sign a song, entitled ‘Sign2sing’, which has been composed especially for the event,

SignHealth, which provides health-related services for all Deaf people, will produce a DVD to show children how to sign the song, as well as a resource pack for teachers to use within the school curriculum. The event is primarily aimed at four to 11-year-olds, however other younger and older children and adults can join in if they wish. Find out more and register your school on the Sign2Sing site.

Will your school be taking part?

The Dahlicious Dress Up Day takes place on Friday 30th September and is a fun way for school children up and down the country to get creative and raise money for a fantastic cause by going to school dressed as their favourite Roald Dahl character.

From Oompa-Loompas to the BFG, The Twits, Willy Wonka, Matilda, Fantastic Mr. Fox and all those other characters from Roald Dahl’s stories, there are plenty of characters for children to choose from. Children are asked to donate £1 to dress up and wow their friends and teachers with their costumes, masks or face paint.

The money raised will go to Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity to help fund much needed specialist nurses, support and equipment for seriously ill children with lifelong and life-limiting neurological or blood conditions.

If your school isn’t already taking part, sign up for an event pack at www.roalddahlcharity.org/schools, email schools@roalddahlcharity.org or call 01494 890465 to speak to someone about getting involved.

Don’t forget that there are also lesson ideas and resources linked to Roald Dahl’s books on my Teaching Library site.

Red Nose Day is back on Friday 18th March and the Comic Relief team are asking everyone to do something funny for money. The charity helps to transform the lives of poor, vulnerable and disadvantaged people across the UK and Africa. From restoring the sight of children in Africa to giving isolated older people in the UK the support they need to enjoy their lives – the money raised can do all this and much, much more.

For schools, there are free primary and secondary fundraising resource packs which are stuffed with everything you could possibly need to get the whole school fundraising and motivated about why it’s so important.

The packs include stickers, posters, activities and learning materials and they are free to order from the Red Nose Day shop.

Brake, the national road safety charity, is calling on educators from secondary schools, colleges and universities to promote its 2young2die competition.  The competition aims to help save lives by raising young people’s awareness about the dangers on and by the road during the dark evenings in autumn and winter.

A shocking 107 young people under 25 are killed or seriously hurt in cars and on motorbikes every week on UK roads.  Deaths and injuries on the road rise dramatically during autumn and winter months so it’s vital that young people are aware of the dangers of driving or walking to schools at this time of year.

Brake is calling for young people between the ages of 11 and 25 to take part in its innovative competition – 2young2die. To take part in the competition, young people must do two simple things; Campaign by engaging their peers in road safety by holding a road safety event or by producing a road safety advert and Collect by running a fundraiser for Brake.  Exciting prizes include an all-expenses paid trip to the Houses of Parliament. Visit Brake’s site to find out more.

Every year school children of all ages take part in Number Day, working their mathematical magic for a great cause – the NSPCC. Their number-based fundraising helps to protect the vulnerable children in the UK who need the NSPCC’s services most. This year there are even more reasons for teachers to take part in Number Day. You could be a part of a new Guinness World Record: the biggest maths lesson ever! There are also Key Stage 1-4 lesson plans to support your fundraising activities. Register now to receive your FREE teaching pack at www.nspcc.org.uk/numberday.

www.nspcc.org.uk/numberday

The NSPCC have also produced a new, free teaching pack called Change Something. The pack contains three comprehensive lesson plans with strong links to the Key Stage 3 citizenship curriculum and the PSE Framework for 7 to 19 year olds in Wales. The lessons also support PSHE topics relating to risk, relationships and decision-making. Visit this page to download the free pack and see all the other resources available for schools.

Teaching in the UK may have its difficulties, but fortunately Maoist strikes are not one of them. For volunteer teachers from UK charity Our Sansar, teaching in Nepal has thrown up considerable challenges, not least of which has been the closure of the schools by a countrywide shutdown. But with the schools now open again, they have been experiencing the challenges and rewards of teaching in one of the world’s poorest countries.

For the next year, Bethan Pink from Richmond and John Buckley from Twickenham will be teaching and organising interschool activities for disadvantaged students in and around Hetauda, a city in Nepal’s green but impoverished south. They will also be working with the local schools to establish education programs for street children.

‘The scenery is very beautiful and the family [we’re staying with] has been lovely to us,’ says Bethan, who previously taught at Lancasterian Primary School, London. ‘There are so many ideas I have for improving the running of the school, such as trying to change the attitude to time keeping; trying to make the classrooms nicer places to be by sweeping the floors, putting up cheerful displays and removing dangerous obstacles; trying to influence the teachers to use more interactive approaches to teaching…We’ll see what can be done with all these ideas.’

Bethan and John arrived in Nepal in late April and are currently based at Shree Kamala Lower Secondary School. Both are experienced professionals who will bring valuable skills to a school that currently has just 9 teachers for over 330 pupils.

The school day has 7 periods and the teachers swap between classrooms to teach their specialist subject. ‘Lessons are quite dull to be honest,’ adds Bethan. ‘[They] rely heavily on call and repeat. I would like to try and have an impact on this.

Adapting to the severe lack of resources, Bethan says that she has been making simple things at home and improvising with whatever is around her.
‘The school has a small library that looks quite cheery,’ she continues. ‘Otherwise classrooms are very bare with only desks and a chalkboard. The library has a copy of an EKTA scheme of learning for English, called Harmony, but they have only 1 copy of each book and with no photocopier, it’s pretty hard to use for the classes. Other text books which are quite inadequate are being used.’

Our Sansar will be sending another experienced teacher to Kathmandu in June and hopes to be able to send a further 7 to schools in Janakpur, Kathmandu and Hetauda before the end of the year. The project will help 50 street children and over 3000 school children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Would you like to be involved in future projects? To find out more, visit www.oursansar.org.

For the fifth year running, development charity Sightsavers, is inviting primary school children across the UK to take part in the 2010 Junior Painter of the Year competition and paint their vision of the future.

The competition, run by Sightsavers in partnership with the Royal Academy Schools, aims to promote the use of paint in school classrooms, whilst encouraging children to reflect on sight and blindness amongst their peers. Last year over 15,000 entries were submitted by children aged 4-11 and this year’s theme Visions of the Future is set to generate even more.

The winning young painters will have their work exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, alongside works by the famous artist and illustrator Quentin Blake CBE, and the renowned artist and Keeper of the Royal Academy of Arts, Professor Maurice Cockrill RA.

www.sightsavers.org/juniorpainter

Three national winners, one from each category (4-7 years, 8-9 years and 10-11 years), will be selected from a list of regional winners.  They will then enjoy a fun-packed day out in London with their teachers in the autumn and attend the awards ceremony at the Royal Academy of Arts where their paintings will be the central focus of the exciting exhibition. Plus one lucky teacher will win a one-of-a-kind painting by Professor Cockrill in a new award category for 2010 called the Maurice Cockrill award. This will be presented to the teacher who has inspired their pupils’ creativity the most when developing the theme.

Schools interested in participating in the awards this year can find more at: www.sightsavers.org/juniorpainter or by contacting the Junior Painter of the Year competition Helpline on 01444 446 768 for a free awards pack.  Entries must be submitted by 14 September 2010.

Friendship Funday is Save the Children’s national fundraising day in primary schools. They are on a mission to find schools that want to have fun, celebrate friendship, and help save children’s lives.

Your school can join the fun and:

• enrich your teaching of children’s rights,
• deliver aspects of the global citizenship curriculum,
• strengthen the ‘friendly’ ethos of your school,
• deliver on the Healthy Schools initiative and SEAL’s relationship-themed topic,
• demonstrate the values of Every Child Matters.

More than 100,000 children have taken part in recent years. The online friendship is already buzzing with activity. Want to join them? Register online or call the charity on 020 7012 6400. Once registered, Save the Children will also send you stickers, posters and balloons and may be able to arrange for one of their volunteer speakers to visit your school –a perfect way to introduce their work and the difference your fundraising will make.

Here is a Youtube video showing how your Friendship Funday can help people in Kroo Bay, Sierra Leone.