Fairtrade fortnight

Fair Trade and Traidcraft

FAIRTRADE FORTNIGHT 2010
St Margaret Ward School Events and activities

We were once again kept busy during Fairtrade Fortnight 2010 and this years theme was 'The Big Swap' with the focus on tea.The campaign was to encourage people to swap their usual cuppa for a Fairtrade cuppa and so we purchased a giant inflatable mug of tea and took to the streets with our message!

Visit to Sainsbury's, Sale
On Tuesday 2 March members of our Fairtrade Action Group were invited to distribute leaflets, including the 'Little book of Swaps' to customers at our local Sainsbury's store in Sale and the children really enjoyed the chance to share their knowledge of Fairtrade with the people they met.Many thanks to Mr Milner and Debbie Heedy at Sainsbury's for organising our visit.

Children with Debbie at Sainsbury's Sale

Visit to The Cooperative,Coppice Ave,Sale
We also visited our local Co operative store on Coppice Ave to hand out Fairtade leaflets and recipe cards.Our giant mug was a great talking point and the children also gave away a number of reusable Co op cotton bags to encourage customers to reduce the use of plastic bags.

Talking tea with customers at the Cooperative store

Design a Fairtrade Teapot Competition
Our competition this year was influenced by the theme of The Big Brew and aimed at Key Stage 1 and Reception, who were invited to colour in their very own Fairtrade teapot. The children were very creative in their designs and it was so difficult to choose just one winner, we decided to have a winner and runner-up in each class! Every child who took part received a small chocolate and the main prizes were Fairtrade mini footballs or purses and chocolate bars.

Year 1 Fairtrade Fortnight Activities
The children in Year 1 looked at the Cafod website to see first hand experiences of people involved in the tea picking industry and how Fairtrade makes a real difference to their lives. Their teacher Miss O'Hare was able to share her own experiences of visiting a tea farm in Sri Lanka and through her own photographs the children were able to see how real the need for Fairtrade is.The children then enjoyed tasting some Fairtrade tea direct from Sri Lanka.Class 1 also held a Big Brew event with parents after their Class Mass and this involved tasting and promoting Fairtrade products within our school.The children are all now very aware of the good that Fairtrade does and they continue to show real interest in using and buying Fairtrade products within their homes.

Nursery Fairtrade Fortnight 2010 activities
Our Nursery children looked at the Fairtrade symbol and talked about the ideas of sharing with others and helping those who need our help.

During the fortnight they had great fun using Fairtrade chocolate to coat Fairtrade bananas.
They also enjoyed making their own Fairtrade hot chocolate which proved to be very popular with all who tasted it!

Traidcraft orders for Christmas
This term, we welcomed five new members to our SMW Fairtrade Action Group and they immediately got to work on ordering items for our stall at Parents Evening as well as taking Christmas orders from parents, staff and parishioners.
We have also been celebrating the good news that we have had our Fairtrade School Status renewed for another year, 2009-2010.

Parents Evening Stall
Thank you to everyone who supported our Traidcraft stall at Parents Evening on 10 November 2009 when we sold £77.75 worth of Traidcraft goods.
We would also like to thank all those who placed advanced orders with us which came to another £241.20.
Our group sold the last of our Fairtrade chocolate raisins and geobars at morning break which brought in another £6.75.

World Fair Trade Day - 9 May 2009
The message this year -The impact you make is immense- was a salute to the people and organizations who have dedicated themselves to making Fair Trade what it is today.
To mark International Fair Trade Day, our Action Group organised a children's raffle of Fairtade items including Fairtrade footballs as the main prizes, colouring pencils, chocolate,cereal bars and keyrings.With the tickets priced at only 20p each, many children took the opportunity to join in and our team were kept busy selling tickets at morning break - the winning tickets were drawn on Thursday 7 May.
The £54 raised from the raffle is being donated to The Valley of the Moon Children's Centre in Mallasa,Bolivia

FAIRTRADE FORTNIGHT 2009
St Margaret Ward School Events and activities

Fairtrade Assembly and Coffee Morning
As a Fairtrade school, our children are always keen to promote the important message of 'A Fair Deal for All' and they were especially busy during Fairtrade Fortnight 2009.Just some of the activities included: morning break sales of Fairtrade cereal bars and juice; a Design a Banner competition with exhibits at The Waterside Centre; handing out leaflets at Sainsbury's; watching videos about Fairtrade footballs, bananas and chocolate.
The children enthusiastically shared all they had learned at a special whole school assembly on Thursday 12 March, during which,Sharman Frost from Trafford Council, presented prizes and certificates to the competition winners.

	Parents, family members and friends were invited to our assembly and joined us afterwards for our Fairtrade coffee morning when they were able to sample a selection of Fairtrade products, including fairtrade cookies,muffins, flapjacks and cereal bars. Once again, we are most grateful to The Co-operative Group for providing their Community pack of coffee, tea, sugar, hot chocolate and resources which were all invaluable on the day.

Visit to Sainsbury's, Sale
Members of our St Margaret Ward Fairtrade Action Group were thrilled to be given the opportunity to promote Fairtrade Fortnight at our local Sainsbury's store in Sale. During the morning of Tuesday 24 February, they distributed leaflets of Fairtrade recipes which had been compiled by Trafford Fairtrade Group and also offered customers various Fairtrade Foundation leaflets and 'Make it Happen-Choose Fairtrade' cards.
The children thoroughly enjoyed their morning and we would like to thank Mr Nick Milner, the Store Manager of Sainsbury's, Sale and especially Debbie Heedy for coordinating our visit and making us so welcome.
Sainsbury's are the biggest retailer of Fairtrade in the UK and you can find out more by clicking on this link- Fairtrade at Sainsbury's

In keeping with this year's 'Go Bananas!' theme, we brought along our own Fairtrade banana, which proved to be an interesting talking point and photo opportunity!

Fairtrade Fortnight exhibition at The Waterside in Sale
We were invited to display examples of art work, photos of events and general information on what we have been doing this past year to promote Fairtrade in our school. As well as showing previous events, we also displayed the top twenty entries to our Design A Fairtrade Banner Competition and our fantastic designers included children in our Reception and Infant classes as well as our Junior children.
Sharman Frost, Senior Sustainability Officer at Trafford Council, kindly agreed to take on the difficult task of selecting the three winners and announced the winning designs at a whole school assembly on Thursday 12 March.

Morning break Fairtrade stalls
A great big 'Thank you' to all the children who supported our Fairtrade Fortnight stalls at morning break when we sold cereal bars and fruit juice.
Our snack stalls were a great success and we sold £67.55 worth of stock over the two mornings.

Parents Evening stall and pre Christmas Traidcraft sales
Our Fair Trade Action Group were once again busy during November sorting out their deliveries from Traidcraft for their stall at Parents Evening and for advance orders for Christmas.The Christmas cards, trinket boxes and gifts were popular with our customers and of course the chocolate cookies always sell quickly.We sold £75.40 worth of items on the evening, another £129.60 sold to staff and a morning break sale of juice brought in £15.60 making a grand total of £220.60.
Once again, well done to all those involved as well as a big ‘Thank you’ to all the parents, staff and children who supported us by purchasing Fair Trade products.

We are now officially a FAIRTRADE SCHOOL.
Our Fairtrade Action Group and our whole school are celebrating the fantastic news that we have been awarded Fairtrade School status. We received our official certificate along with the ‘We are a Fairtrade School’ logo during the summer break, (July 2008) and the children are thrilled to know that all their hard work and enthusiasm has been rewarded.

For more information on the benefits of being a Fairtrade school, please take a look at Why become a Fairtrade School?

Our Action Group are determined to work even harder this year to promote the important message of Fairtrade and are already planning a Fairtrade stall at Parents Evening as well as preparing to distribute Traidcraft catalogues for pre-Christmas orders.

World Fair Trade Day is celebrated each year on the second Saturday of May and this year's theme was 'Fair Trade + Ecology'.
When developing products, Fair Trade producers consider, at every stage of production, the impact of the product on the local and global environment and the products are therefore made of materials that are locally and abundantly available.
We are all asked to buy more Fair Trade goods through Fair Trade stores, catalogues and campaign groups and to encourage conventional companies to sell more Fair Trade products.

To increase awareness of World Fair Trade Day, our school Fair Trade Group organised a sale of Fairtrade fruit juice, cookies and cereal bars at morning break on 6th and 7th May.

The children circulated posters and information to each class to highlight the importance of supporting the sale of Traidcraft items and despite a slow start on the Tuesday, the stall sold out of everything on Wednesday.

Thank you to all the children who bought items from the stall and apologies to the few disappointed children who didn't manage to get cookies - we'll double the next order!

FAIRTRADE FORTNIGHT 2008
Events at St Margaret Ward Primary School

A Design a Fairtrade T-shirt Competition was just one of a variety of fun events which took place at our school during Fairtrade Fortnight. The children were highly creative in their ideas and used slogans and images to show how much they care about the issues of food and clothing production around the world.
The winning designers received certificates and Fairtrade goodie bags at a special assembly on Thursday 28 February and there was a small Fairtrade treat for every entrant to reward their efforts.

This is just a small sample of the eighty fantastic T-shirts which were displayed around our school during the fortnight.

Winners of the Design a Fairtrade Tshirt competition

Although our Fair Trade Action Group actively promote Fair Trade throughout the year, this was the first time that we had involved every class in such a wide range of activities and events during Fairtrade Fortnight - either watching Fairtrade dvds and videos; completing word searches and quizzes; playing games on fair trade websites; making posters and decorating classrooms with displays; sampling fair trade products; role-play to show how some farmers are exploited and a favourite with the children, making fairtrade chocolate crispie cakes.

Volunteers for tasting Fairtrade chocolate

Class 5 invited parents and parishioners to their wonderfully moving and thought provoking mass on the theme of the Fair Trade and Poverty. Using music, mime and specially composed prayers, the children reminded us of the importance of thinking of others and making the right choices and all those present were given a beautiful bookmark as a keepsake. Following the mass, everyone was invited back for Fairtrade tea or coffee and the opportunity to sample a range of Fairtrade products with the chocolate cookies and biscuits proving particularly popular!
We are most grateful to the Co operative Group who kindly donated a coffee morning pack of products and resources, some of which also provided prizes for our various competitions.

Class 5 offering samples of Fairtrade products

Fairtrade Fortnight is all about raising awareness and the children of St Margaret Ward School are not only aware of fairly traded products but feel strongly that young children around the world should have the chance to live a healthy and full life, rather than have to work for a living and miss out on their education.

This fortnight of events has reminded us all of the importance of thinking of others and of doing what we can to 'make a difference'. We hope that throughout their lives, our children will continue to strive for a fairer future for all.

Members of our Fair Trade Action Group were kept busy during October and November 2007 sorting out their deliveries from Traidcraft: in addition to checking off stock for their stall at Parents Evening, the children put together various individual orders placed by staff and parents and these advanced orders came to the value of £264.
Our enthusiastic team of volunteers then took turns of manning the stall throughout Parents Evening and sold £141 worth of items on the night.
Well done to all those involved and a big ‘Thank you’ to all the parents, staff and children who purchased Fair Trade products.

On Thursday 8 November we were delighted to welcome Fair Trade campaigner Mr Basil Wakefield who came in to talk to our three junior classes.
He told the children about a visit he had made to Tanzania where he had become acutely aware of the level of poverty and hardship experienced by the majority of people and asked the children to imagine what life would be like without so many of the basics which we all take for granted. He also explained about the principles behind Fair Trade and encouraged the children to think about making a difference – starting with how they can help to make Sale a Fair Trade town.
As the children returned to their classes after sampling a selection of Fairtrade chocolate and cookies, they promised to be more aware of fairly traded products and the importance of working for a fairer future for all.

In September 2007, our International Food Festival Evening provided us with an excellent opportunity to run one of our Traidcraft stalls.
Our group of volunteers handed out leaflets and information to their customers on the importance of choosing fairly traded products and provided information about where some of the items had been made.
Yet again, the cookies and bars of milk chocolate proved to be as popular as ever though the beautiful jewel boxes and beaded purses were also a sell out!
Many parents and friends commented on the high quality of the Traidcraft items.

We became actively involved in Fair Trade in 2006 when representatives of our school council joined with other pupils from Trafford Schools for a Pupil Forum on Fair Trade, at Sale's Waterside Arts Centre.The day was organised by the Manchester Development Education Project and included drama, storytelling and creative art workshops,simulation games and information on becoming a Fair Trade school.
This very successful forum encouraged the children to think about the wider issues of food and clothing production around the world and to be more aware of how we can all do something to promote Fair Trade.

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