Christmas Concert
On 4th December we held our annual Christmas Concert at Christ Church in East Sheen.
On 4th December we held our annual Christmas Concert at Christ Church in East Sheen.
We are mid-way through our wonderful Victorian Christmas sessions especially designed for visitors with widely different needs, from children with autism, visual impairments or learning difficulties, to those with complex and life-limiting physical disabilities, to elderly people living in care homes or the community.
Autumn Activity Walk
On 25th November 8 children under 5 and their families joined us for an Autumn Activity Walk in the Isabella Plantation in Richmond Park.
We are delighted that Jacki Piper recently accepted an invitation to become a patron of The Holly Lodge Centre.
Next year we are able to offer 20 free outdoor workshops to schools in deprived areas, thanks to funding from the Barbara Ward Children's Foundation and Thames Water. We also have funding from the Kaye Pemberton Charitable Trust and Richmond Hill Open Gardens that enables us to pay towards the cost of transport to get to Richmond Park, which can be expensive and a barrier for many schools to getting their pupils outside.
We believe it is vital all children have access to outdoor education and as an article about The Wildlife Trusts in the Guardian on 7th November explains ‘Primary schoolchildren should spend at least one hour a day learning and playing in wild places to help improve their wellbeing and confidence’.
Therefore this funding enables us to give children, many of whom may not usually have the opportunity to learn outside, the chance to explore our beautiful nature trail. They can take part in activities such as pond dipping, bird watching, building animal habitats and searching for minibeasts. We are looking forward to introducing hundreds of children to their first newts, frogs, tadpoles and slugs!
The Holly lodge Centre has always aimed to make learning a joyful, hands-on experience.
So it seemed only natural to celebrate the charity’s 25 anniversary in the same way, by creating a showcase event, allowing sponsors and supporters to sample some popular activities for themselves.
We all went completely batty over some very special visitors to the Centre last week. We were joined by the whole of Clarendon Junior School, who came to learn all about bats. The classroom had been converted to a bat cave where the children donned costumes and discovered some stories about bats. Out on the nature trail we used our sensory dipping boxes to explore some more facts about bats, the children hunted for moths and recreated echolocation. The finale was to meet live bats kindly brought to the Centre by Derek from Surrey Bat Trust. We all met two tiny soprano pipistrelle bats, Billy and Benny, who were most obliging and let everyone get up close to have a look at them.
The day was even featured in the Richmond and Twickenham Times, read the article here.