155 students at Exeter Meeting
Friends welcomed six school groups to Exeter Meeting House to mark Holocaust Memorial Day
One hundred and fifty-five school pupils visited Exeter Meeting House to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.
The six school groups of students aged between eight and fifteen came to the Meeting as part of a Religious Education (RE) trip organised by the RE advisor for the Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education (SACRE) and the advisor to Church of England schools in the Diocese of Exeter.
The trip to places of interest, historic rights and justice in the city also included the Jewish synagogue and cemetery, the Dissenters graveyard, Exeter Cathedral and the Guildhall. Quaker Laura Conyngham told the Friend that the students visited for ten-minute sessions throughout the day from 11pm to 2pm.
‘What we thought was going to be a visit from a school, mushroomed to be much larger. Penelope Putz spoke movingly of her memories as an eight- to nine-year-old with Jewish refugees in her home. She read Anna’s postcard, “My dear Penelope” dated 24 December 1939. Bridget Oliver described being outside London’s ExCeL Centre in September 2019 where hundreds of Quakers held Meeting for Worship in the road to prevent lorries delivering weapons to the arms fair. We felt that the short silences were deep and that the quietness in our Meeting room enveloped all the young people and adults. On leaving, one child asked: “Can I shake hands with you?” And one teacher said she would welcome more talks from us as part of their “conflict syllabus”.’
Comments
Great to have children learning about conflict resolution. We need more programmes like this
By Lizanderton on 6th February 2020 - 16:04
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