The College Magazine Winter 2019

News
Bird Feeders in Early Years
Since the Pioneering Spirit Grant awarded money to
Dulwich College Beijing, the students have been helping
to encourage birds to recognise our lovely grounds as a
feeding area. When they know this is a feeding area, they will
return here after winter and make their nests, hopefully in our
newly acquired bird boxes.
The Early Years students have been helping by making food
at home; nuts, seeds and lard have been a welcome treat for the
birds. Some local nesting sparrows have enjoyed the loose seeds,
but the larger wood pigeons and other birds have enjoyed the
stickier hearty foods. Most of the food the students have made
has already been eaten by the birds, so they are about to make
some for the winter holiday.
In other good news, the bird boxes have arrived and are on
display outside Mr Benjamin’s classroom. Over the Christmas
holiday they will be installed in trees that are known to be popular
with the birds. This begins phase two of the project, where
students will watch and monitor to see if we have any guests.
It is likely that the bird boxes will not have any guests until the
weather gets warmer.
Thank you to everyone who is planning on making food at
home with their children. We look forward to helping the birds
over the winter.
– Liam Benjamin
How to Celebrate World Kindness Day
Kindness is one of our Dulwich Values, so it seemed rather
fitting that our children all celebrated this concept on
World Kindness Day 2019 on 13 November.
The morning of the big day arrived, and happy, chattering
children from the Early Years and Junior School Student
Councils, Year 7 Wellbeing Ambassadors and Year 11 Wellbeing
Representatives gathered in the Atrium to welcome the
community with cheery greetings as they entered the school.
They handed out good-will messages scribbled on paper hearts,
held the doors open (and let the guard have a rest for an hour!),
and encouraged people to sign the ‘Kindness Wall’.
The Student Councils also collaborated to deliver lessons
about kindness to their peer groups, created displays in their
schools, and thought about how they could help support this
learning throughout the day. In Early Years, children baked
cakes and biscuits and paraded around the school to give them
to unsuspecting staff. They practised some mindfulness, made
paper flowers for our school ayis, listened to kindness stories,
talked about how they had been kind and who was kind to them,
and presented love hearts to those they cared about. All over
the College, the community came together to spread a little
kindness and took time in their busy day to consider others.
– Helen Herbert
12 beijing.dulwich.org