Story of a Donation: Birkdale Primary School - THANK YOU (Part 2)

A few months back in Long Push 2012 history I posted a Long Push thread on a local website,  

http://www.southport.gb.com/southport/forum/THE_LONG_PUSH_2012___Longboarding_for_Autism_Awareness-51094237-1.htm

One of the people who responded to this was teaching assistant Mrs. Hayward from Birkdale Primary School. She was very positive about the project and very keen to help in any way. It was Mrs. Hayward who helped organise for me to attend the Southport Funfest, and hand out flyers for the day, amongst loads of other suggestions and offers of support. One of these was that she would see if the school would be willing to support The Long Push. We arranged for me to go in an speak to head teacher Mr. Shearan and I caught him briefly one morning. He was very keen and very positive about the whole thing. We arranged for me to attend a morning assembly with my board one day and tell the children all about The Long Push to see if they would help raise some money.

Now, I've seen a few school assembly's. I see quite a few through work, but I've never seen any as positive, vibrant and uplifting as Mr. Sheeran's at Birkdale Primary. It really IS the 'School of Rock!'  His enthusiasm is infectious and he injects assemblys with his love of all things Sci-Fi and rock music, with the children celebrating their weekly achievements to the song, 'Star of the Week', while Mr. Sheeran plays the riffs on his electric guitar, wich sounded uncannilly like...'Highway to Hell'! :o) 

Sing it to yourself...

"Playing easy, 

working hard, 

is your name written on the card"

:o)

And as if to seal his rock star credentials, the song even ends with Mr. Sheeran throwing his plectrum, Jack Black like, into the 'audience'. Priceless! A friend of mine who has children at the school was sat next to me in the assembly and we're both huge rock fans. Both of us were howling with laughter. It was just...brilliant!

Anyway, I stood up and had my 5 minutes, explaining about my 100 mile longboard journey. The kids had never seen a longboard, and I'd taken the 55" Lush Kilima in as well as the Landyachtz board I'm using, so they were pretty amazed at the size of it. After assembly, myself and Mr. Sheeran spoke with the School Council and they agreed to do something to support The Long Push

Move forward to Monday 16th July and it was time for me to return to another assembly. The children had had a 'mufty day' on Friday 13th and had paid 50p to come into school in their own clothes instead of uniform. So today the school presented me with a cheque for £120 for The Long Push 2012/Families Connected, from the proceeds of their day, and a Birkdale Primary sticker which will be going on my board or helmet for the journey. Fantastic!

Huge thanks to all the children and staff at Birkdale Primay School for supporting The Long Push. Special thanks to Mrs. Hayward and Mr. Shearan, for their enormous support and positivity for the project. I was hugely impressed with what I saw at Birkdale Primary School. If the children who attend there take forward the positivity and energy that Mr. Sheeran injects into the school we will have a future generation to be proud of. From myself and on behalf of Families Connected...

 THANK YOU