Cranford Review 2019

Vicarage Farm Care Home
Working in the
Community
Over
the Summer term the year 12
Charities committee decided to
establish positive relationships with members
of the local community. They visited Vicarage
Farm Care Home to run activities for their
residents. In addition, they wanted to engage
the lower school in charitable activities. So
five year 9 students; Keziah Carvello, Mahwish
Khan, Neha Khendria, Maryam Moeen and
Maleka Yonesi and five year 12 students;
Sajneet Bagga, Serena Lola, Harsimar Madan,
Amrit Rai and Ajay Turner, spent time at the
nursing home every Wednesday afternoon for
five weeks accompanied by Ms Saroya.
Students spent the first week getting to know
their allocated resident. In the following weeks they used talking cards to get
to know them better, painted and played games together. In the final week the
students hosted an afternoon tea party for the residents and their carers. It was a
beautiful sunny afternoon in the Memorial Garden accompanied by the mellow
sounds of Jazz. There was an emotional end to the day as each student presented each resident
with a present of a personalised collage of the time they had together and what they learnt about the
residents. As they bid farewell to each other there were tears from residents and students alike who enjoyed
new friendships.
Sharandeep Saroya (Post 16 – School Improvement Team)
“My school provided me with an opportunity to get to know older
people living in a care home. My experience was a mixture of
happiness and sadness. The person I was given the chance to befriend
was John Barnes. He was really quiet and was hard to speak to. He was suffering with
dementia. However, I managed to learn about his personal life. He was a famous saxophone
player and used to be in a band. He taught young children as well. His wife used to live in
the same care home and they used to share a funny love-hate relationship. I was really happy
when he started opening up to me. However I was sad that it was hard for him to talk about
his past. We did different activities each week like playing games, painting, questions and
answers. This bought us closer and helped us to be more at ease with each other. The last
week, we held a tea party for the residents. It was fun and we gave them gifts of a collage of
their lives. It was very emotional as it was our last day with them. It was a really amazing
experience and I am really grateful to have had this opportunity which I will never forget”.
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Harsimar Madan (year 12)