Students at our school have been putting their lockdown time to good use - by writing ‘kindness letters’ to care home residents, NHS staff and local supermarkets.

Pupils have been completing ‘Kindness Tasks’ to illustrate our core values of kindness and respect. The letters also show appreciation of the key workers who are helping the wider community and have been written to help cheer-up the recipients in these difficult times.

More than 125 students have sent letters and many have been made more personal by our pupils linking their own experiences to the current situation.

The letters sent by our students have been so respectful and honest and have shown a great awareness of the world around them while showing sympathy to others and we are all very proud of them.

Residents at Rose Lodge, Wisbech; High Haven, Downham Market; Hickathrift House, Marshland St James and Dove Court in Wisbech have all received letters in recent days from 44 students in Year 7.

“I am writing to you to send happy thoughts to you and to let you know that times are hard for everyone right now, but we will get through this together and everything will be okay in the end,” starts one letter to a care home.

“I can imagine you must get a little fed up and bored,” said another letter which went on to suggest a word game using the letters of the recipient’s name. The 12-year-old author also said she was ‘unfortunately’ having to still do school work but had also been playing games.

A group of 42 pupils have written to local branches of Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Iceland thanking staff for their work during this difficult period. The letters have been made into displays in staff rooms and canteens.

“I am writing this letter to tell you how much my family and I think you’re doing such a great job at this difficult time. 

“You help everyone by providing them with food and daily products we need to survive and so you all deserve a letter saying how well you have done,” said a 13-year-old student.

“You are doing a fantastic job and people are very stressed and they do take it out on you which then makes the day harder,” noted a Year 9 student.

“I think kindness and respect towards supermarket staff is very important because not everyone understands how important your job is” he added before going on to say that he wanted to ‘say sorry’ if the staff have been getting any abuse.

The Year 10 pupils wrote kindness letters to the ambulance stations in King’s Lynn and Wisbech and to the communications team at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital - which produced a thank-you video in response.

“I think you are doing a marvelous job being on the front line, you must all be facing so many different emotions at the moment and I can only imagine.

“You are putting your own lives at risk to care for patients that are sick or even have Covid 19, that in my eyes is incredible, you are all heroes,” said one student.

“Even if you’re feeling low remember you are making such a huge difference to everyone’s lives and you are the most important people in the country,” said another letter.

“Every Thursday at 8pm I stand outside my front door and clap, cheer and make noise for all the frontline people because what you’re doing is so incredibly brave. We have got rainbows and teddies in our windows to make this gloomy time a bit more happier,” said a student who added that the country would be ‘a mess; without the NHS staff.

 

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The following tasks were given to individual years groups to complete:

Year 7 task - to write kindness letters to elderly residents of local care homes.

44 students wrote these letters and they have been sent to four local care homes:

• Rose Lodge Care Home - WIsbech 
• High Haven Care Home - Downham Market 
• Hicathrift House - Marshland St James 7
• Dove Court Care Home

Care homes are distributing the letters to their residents and using them to complete activities. Some are getting their residents to respond to the letters and one would ike teh students to meet their residents after the COVID 19 crisis.

Please see below some photos of care home residents reading the letters at one of the care homes:

   

      

Year 8 task - to write kindness letters to staff at Marshland High School 

13 students wrote to school staff to thank them for their support this year and to be kind.

Year 9 task - to write kindness letters to supermarket staff at local stores, to show appreciation and to be kind.

42 students have written these letters and they have been sent to the following local store:

• Tesco
• Asda
• Morrisons
• Iceland 

Please see below some photos of local supermarket staff  reading the letters:

   

The supermarkets have made displays with the letters, left in staff rooms and canteens for staff to read. Once is going to make a display in store for the public to see the great work.

              

Year 10 task - to write kindness letters to NHS staff at local stores, to show appreciation and to be kind.  

27 students wrote these letters and they have been sent to:

• Communications team at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kings Lynn
• Ambulance Station in Wisbech
• Ambulance Station in Kings Lynn

Queen Elizabeth Hospital produced the following video to say thank you to our students.

The staff at the QEH have responded to our year 10 students by releasing a second video saying thank you for the letters they received. Please click on the link below to view:

Response from QEH Staff 

                 

Please see below for examples of the letters of kindness our students have sent to our community: