Newington College is incredibly proud to promote service learning through action, helping our boys to assist those in less fortunate positions than themselves. Whilst the boys engage in a range of service opportunities at school-buddy projects with younger peers and assisting at Cromehurst School amongst other opportunities, we also like to celebrate those boys and their families who engage in service outside of school. Below are two such examples from boys in Year 5.

Declan Williams

Not long ago, I went to the Asylum Seekers Center in Newtown with my family and we made lunch for less fortunate people. These people were asylum seekers and couldn’t always afford to provide lunch for their families. The difference between asylum seeker status and refugee status is that asylum seekers seek international protection whilst refuges have an undetermined status. Refugees and asylum seekers often flee terrible conditions in their home countries in order to come to safer countries like ours. The food we gave them was a variety of fruits, food courses and a cake made by us. There were lots of happy families that weekend!

Kye Patterson

Every week I go to Cub Scouts and we do weekly service activities such as picking up rubbish, making food packs for the homeless and doing random acts of kindness such as helping elderly people. I think that these activities are really helpful to the community.

In Cubs, every pack (mine is 1st Alexandria) has their own scarf. No one in the world has one like my pack, it is unique.

In my pack, I was the first in 50 years to be invested (when you are invested you are officially in the pack) which I think is pretty special.

A favourite part of Cubs would be camping, camping can help you feel more independent while going out and having fun. We also need to prepare ourselves by doing things like putting up our tents, cooking food and cleaning up after ourselves.

Overall, helping the community, getting invested and camping are the things that I’ve enjoyed the most, but I’ve barely scratched the surface with Cubs. We are committed to helping others and I really love it!

Sam Watson – Year 5 Teacher