Windygoul Primary wins VIP visit from X-Factor twins

Published: May 31st, 2011

Windygoul Primary School in Tranent, East Lothian, has triumphed over hundreds of schools from across Scotland to win a superstar visit from X-Factor and Eurovision double-act Jedward. Staff and pupils, along with the local community, have worked tirelessly over the last eight months to collect mobile phones for recycling campaign ‘Give Every Child a Voice.’

The primary school is one of over 300 schools across Scotland who signed up to the campaign, which is run in partnership with NSPCC’s ChildLine service in Scotland and interactive learning technology company, Promethean, to raise vital funds to support children and young people in the country.

Schools were tasked to collect as many old and unwanted mobile phones as possible before Friday 13th May 2011 to be in with a chance of winning the special celebrity visit, as well as a set of Promethean’s hand-held learning devices for the school.

Jedward will arrive at Windygoul Primary School later this month to congratulate the pupils on their achievements and will act as guest judges at the school’s highly anticipated annual talent contest.

“Our pupils and staff are delighted to welcome Jedward to Windygoul!” said Ann Malcolm, head teacher at Windygoul Primary School. “As a green-school, with a strong environmentally friendly ethos, the recycling campaign has been really important to us.”

Peter MacKenzie, Member Councillor of East Lothian Council’s Education and Children’s Services Cabinet, added: “First of all, congratulations to Windygoul Primary on their magnificent fundraising effort. I know that the school was one of several primaries in East Lothian to take part in this project and all of them worked extremely hard to collect old phones.

“Mrs Malcolm is right to stress the strong emphasis we place on environmental concerns and sustainability in our schools. This, coupled with state-of-the-art teaching practice and equipment, underlines the Administration’s commitment to ensuring that East Lothian’s young people achieve their full potential in the modern world.”

Ian Curtis, Head of UK, Ireland and Northern Europe at Promethean, comments: “We have been really impressed with how Scottish schools have supported this campaign with great enthusiasm. For every 250 mobile phones that each school collects, Promethean has agreed to donate £500 to the ChildLine service in Scotland, as well as provide the school with a hand-held ActivExpression Learner Response System which can empower students to participate in class discussions and tests. There’s still plenty of time for schools to help raise money for ChildLine and we would encourage schools that are participating in the campaign to visit the website (www.giveeverychildavoice.com) for ideas to boost their mobile phone collection.”

ActivExpression is an innovative way for teachers and pupils to interact. The handheld devices allow every child in a class to respond to questions from teachers by texting their answers. Pupils are able to express their thoughts and feelings anonymously in class, without peer pressure or embarrassment, ensuring the teacher has real insight into the welfare of each child.

The campaign is making a significant contribution to the work of ChildLine in Scotland which has been providing confidential support to children and young people in need of advice for the past 20 years. Last year alone over 32,000 children were counselled by the service in Scotland on issues ranging from family relationships and bullying to abuse and loneliness. The service receives many more calls than can be answered and needs further funding to counsel more children.

Head of fundraising for the NSPCC in Scotland, Sally Cameron, said: “As well as the strong recycling messages, this campaign has provided us with a unique way of raising awareness amongst children and young people that ChildLine is there for them whenever and wherever they need us.

“Every penny raised will help us to develop the ChildLine service in Scotland. We are very grateful to have been chosen by Promethean to benefit from the campaign.”

If you would like to donate a mobile phone via a school local to you, find out which schools are taking part on the campaign’s website www.giveeverychildavoice.com.

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Note to editors:

• All old, unused mobile phones collected must be in working condition. Broken and damaged phones constitute only half a phone towards the school’s collection.

Enquiries

Promethean
Julia Landon – M: (0)7971 129 850 / T: (0)1254 290733
E: Julia.Landon@PrometheanWorld.com
ChildLine
Harriet Hall – M: (0)7760 272021 / T: (0) 207 650 6774
Grayling
Vicki Murphy – M: (0)7540 742 462 / T: (0)113 201 8260
E: vicki.murphy@grayling.com
Philippa Naylor – M: (0)7510 595 818 / T: (0)113 201 8260
E: philippa.naylor@grayling.com

About ‘give every child a voice’

– Children, parents and schools will be encouraged to collect old or unwanted mobile phones. For every 250 phones collected, Promethean will donate £500 to ChildLine in Scotland – enabling another 125 calls to be answered by ChildLine volunteer counsellors.

– Funds raised will help recruit and train more counsellors, increase the manning of night shifts, recruit more counsellors to respond to the online counselling service, help with the legal recordings and documentation required for all calls should a case be taken to Court.

– For every 250 phones a school collects, Promethean will also provide a set of 33 ActivExpression Learner Response Systems. These hand-held devices are pupil response or voting systems. They enable each member of a class to answer each question asked by teachers, with the responses and the identity of the pupils responding visible only to the teacher. They have been proven to increase pupil attention and contribution to lessons and to help raise learning standards. They also give the teacher immediate insight into individual student comprehension and progression and enable teachers both to revisit points pupils may not have grasped and to develop personalised teaching.

– As part of the campaign, specialist downloadable content will be made available on www.PrometheanPlanet.com to help teachers raise awareness of a range of issues including recycling, family relationships and bullying issues. These will complement the existing 22,000 digital teaching resources already available on PrometheanPlanet.com.

– The company handling the recycling is Sigma.

About ChildLine

ChildLine in Scotland is the free and confidential helpline service for children and young people. Trained volunteer counsellors comfort, advise and protect children and young people who turn to us for support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Children and young people can call ChildLine free on 0800 1111. They can also visit the website www.childline.org.uk which is solely for children and young people to access help, advice and information about the helpline. The service is provided and funded by the NSPCC.

Facts and figures

– ChildLine in Scotland counselled over 32,000 children and young people last year alone (1 April 2009 to 31 March 2010).
– Since opening in 1990, the three bases have counselled 454,700 children and young people
– Each freephone call to ChildLine costs £4
– It costs £1,600 to recruit and train a volunteer ChildLine counsellor. In their first year, a counsellor will be able to help up to 200 children through their worries and distress.
– Out of the total number of children and young people
– 21% were counselled about family relationships
– 20% were counselled due to bullying
– 14% were counselled further to physical abuse or punishment

About the NSPCC

The NSPCC is the UK’s leading children’s charity specialising in child protection and the prevention of cruelty to children. Its vision is of a society where all children are loved, valued and able to fulfil their potential. The NSPCC runs services across the UK and the Channel Islands, including therapeutic services for young people who have experienced abuse, domestic violence projects and services for supporting families. Helpline services include the NSPCC helpline for adults with concerns about a young person and the ChildLine service for children and young people. For more information, visit www.nspcc.org.uk.

About Promethean

Promethean – Lighting the flame of learning
Promethean is a global education company committed to supporting teaching and learning. Our focus is on student centered and collaborative learning. We do this through our integrated technology, training, content and assessment solutions that help teachers meet individual student needs. Our products are used in more than 500,000 classrooms around the world, and PrometheanPlanet.com, the world’s largest interactive whiteboard community site, provides its almost one million members access to around 24,000 free teaching resources. With corporate headquarters in the U.K. and U.S., Promethean has offices in 15 countries and is listed on the London Stock Exchange as Promethean World Plc (ticker symbol ‘PRW’). www.PrometheanWorld.com