March has arrived and with the days getting slightly longer and the bulbs popping up it feels as though spring is nearly here. Hopefully the weather will soon start to get a bit warmer too as we approach Easter.

Nearly 50 parents attended Better Together day on 17th February. As we are part of a health led project called Well Bradford we decided to dedicate the day to living well. We all know that to be healthy we need to eat well, exercise and get plenty of sleep but it is equally important that we have a nice home, enough money and nice places to go to where we can have positive relationships with a wide range of people. St Edmund’s is that place for many families in the area and we feel really privileged that so many of you tell us how much you and your children love coming here. 

The day was called Love Bradford Love Girlington Love Life – keeping healthy and happy.  We ran five different workshops in the afternoon (after sharing a lovely healthy lunch!). Iain Hendry from the National Media museum joined us to run a workshop on making sure the museum meets the needs of local families, other workshops were: How music and creativity can keep us healthy and happy, a taster session on our Children’s Centre run programme Health Exercise and Nutrition for the Really Young (HENRY), When to go to A & E, the GP, the pharmacist and when to go to school and Looking after Girlington – 2 neighbourhood wardens joined us for this workshop. At the end of the day staff spent half an hour picking up litter round the school. We want St Edmund’s to look lovely and inviting – please help us to keep it that way.

We all love Better Together day as it gives us an opportunity to really talk and listen to your views. We are also planning to run more Girlington Growers sessions so watch out for these. Girlington Growers benefits our health in so many ways – being outside in the fresh air, getting exercise, chatting to people, doing something positive for the community and sharing some lovely food. We look forward to more of you joining us next time.

As we told everyone at Better Together day – it can sometimes feel that there’s lots of negative things happening in the world that we can’t control but we can make a difference and that can start with one place, one street, one area and one city.

“Never think that a small group of committed people can’t change the world. It’s the only thing that ever has.” (Margaret Mead)