At Ysgol yr Holl Saint - All Saints’ School we believe in the importance and benefits of intergenerational care whereby senior adults and young children come together in the same environment.

For the senior adults, the social interaction can help make huge improvements in mental health, helping to battle depression, loneliness, and dementia. Children tend to develop empathy, care and kindness, as well as communication and social skills.

The school works in partnership with a local care home, Trewythen. Pre-Covid a small group of residents would visit school on a weekly basis and socialise with children in the Infant Department. They would take part in activities such as gardening, playing board games, craft making, building with Lego, dancing and even playing in the sand and water! It didn’t take long for some good relationships to be established between the children and residents and the children looked forward to their weekly visits. Residents would also attend school functions such as Christmas Concerts, Eisteddfod and have also stayed for school dinner. 

The School Choir have visited Trewythen regularly to sing for the residents and also to spend time with them. This has proved to be a moving experience for both the residents and children. 

The children, residents and staff have all missed the weekly visits during lockdown but this hasn’t stopped the children thinking about their more senior ‘friends’. During the first lockdown, children planted sunflowers in pots to send to the residents and made a large rainbow for them to hang in their care home. We also felt that the staff at Trewythen deserved a treat so school staff held a virtual quiz as a fundraiser. Money raised was used to provide them with a cream tea. More recently, the Infant children made Christmas cards which were delivered to the residents.

Postcards

We wanted to make sure we kept in touch with the residents of Trewythen during the new lockdown that came into place in December. Pupils who were accessing school for Critical Key Worker provision worked on postcards in school and pupils who were Distance Learning at home worked on postcards at home.  These were then safely dispatched to the care home and we look forward to hearing how the residents enjoyed receiving them.

We will certainly be designing more to send soon!  

Christmas Cards

We look forward to welcoming the residents to school every Friday to work with us.  Sadly, we have been unable to welcome them as usual due to the Coronavirus.  We thought keeping in touch was really important and were so pleased that the residents enjoyed the Christmas cards that we sent them.