On the theme of Remembrance, we will be making and sending Chanukah cards and Christmas cards to Jewish and non-Jewish troops on active service. The cards are being sent through the auspices of the Royal British Legion, Support our Soldiers and the AFJC welfare organisation for Jewish troops in the present day forces.

We are starting our theme of Remembrance on Armistice Day with the 2 minutes silence and following this up by a visit from Col Mordaunt Cohen on Monday 15th November to tell the whole school his story of serving as a Jew in HM Forces during WW2. The cards are being made on Friday 19th November by the main body of the school but on Thursday 18th November we will be welcoming Year 6 from Christ Church C of E School to join our year 6 in making tha cards.Our Reception class has been in contact with a serving Jewish soldier and sends him letters and food parcels on a regular basis and Captain Airey has promised to visit us in the next cople of weeks when he is on leave to talk about what iy's like to be a Jeewish soldier serving in taoday's Forces.

Our other project focusses on the shared history of the local refugees and of the families of some of the children in the school. Some of the children have relatives who came to this country as refugees so we using that experience to link up with the Brent Refugee Forum to collect much-needed goods for them such as nappies and general toiletries. Our usual method for collections of this kind is to use a box or table outside the headteacher's office but I had the idea that the children would rather like to fill a supermarket trolley with the goods rather than a boring box. To this end and with the help of a well-informed colleague I rang Tesco at Brent Cross who were replacing their trolleys and offered to re-cycle one for them! They were delighted to accept so this will be placed in the entrance hall of the school in the week of 15th November ready to recive the children's donations.In preparation for this, we are inviting a Jewish refugee to speak to the children in the run-up to Mitzvah Day so that the children can see that we have to deal kindly with the starnger because as the Torah says, we were strangers in a strange land.