Interesting Times!

Wednesday, 20 February 2008

After lunch I visited Kerr Mackie Primary School...

Jon Farley, the headteacher had invited me to their Asian Heritage Week which celebrated the rich diversity of children's backgrounds and cultures and promoted community cohesion and understanding. The school was working with a range of partners including Hansa's Restaurant and the Annapurna Indian Dance Company. Children from Year 5 had been working on a Fairtrade project and were running a Fairtrade shop in the school.

I had the chance to look around the school and to attend a performance by the school's brilliant Dhol drummers and their fabulous Bollywood dancers. The school has a strong partnership with the Beaconhouse School in Lahore. Pakistan and one of the teachers, Mrs Lubna Malik, is currently in Leeds and she talked about her school, its curriculum and its achievements.

The thing that really hits you about Kerr Mackie is the wonderful children and its inclusive approach. It's a great school doing some amazing things and certainly when I visited John and his colleagues were releasing a very special kind of magic.
Chris

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Brilliant Quotes!

“I must accept life unconditionally. Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition.”
Margaret Lee Runbeck

“Happiness is not in our circumstances but in ourselves. It is not something we see, like a rainbow, or feel, like the heat of a fire. Happiness is something we are.”
John B. Sheerin

“Most true happiness comes from one's inner life, from the disposition of the mind and soul. Admittedly, a good inner life is difficult to achieve, especially in these trying times. It takes reflection and contemplation and self-discipline.”
William L Shirer

“The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase: If you pursue happiness you'll never find it.”
C.P. Snow

“Doubly rich is the man still boyish enough to play, laugh and sing as he carries and emanates sunshine along a friendly road.”
Charles R. Wiers

"Faith is not a shelter against difficulties, but belief in the face of all contradictions."
Paul Tournier

"Convictions are the mainsprings of action, the driving powers of life. What a man lives are his convictions."
Francis C. Kelley

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Sydney Smith

"It is often just as sacred to laugh as it is to pray"
Charles R. Swindoll

"Things never go so well that one should have no fear; and never so ill that one should have no hope"
Turkish proverb

"Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself"
Chinese proverb

"Don't bother to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself."
William Faulkner

"In times of change, learners will inherit the earth,while the learned will find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists"
Eric Hoffer

"Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans."
John Lennon

"Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation."
Robert F. Kennedy

"The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems."
Mahatma Gandhi

"Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way."
Abraham Lincoln

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
Martin Luther King Jr.

"There is nothing in life so difficult that it cannot be overcome. This faith can move mountains. It can change people. It can change the world."
Norman Vincent Peale

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Albert Einstein

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Anonymous

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John Quincy Adams

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Ralph Waldo Emerson