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Tiles for Smiles!!
05 April 2011
What makes you smile in the garden? This question was put to “Johnnie” Johnson Housing Trusts’ retirement tenants at Mitchell House and Mitchell Close in Gatley by eight children from nearby Lum Head Primary School. Flowers, sunshine and animals featured highly and the children worked together with other children from the North Cheshire Jewish School to make an array of clay tiles all featuring their own designs to create a garden wall at the retirement scheme.
The tile making project was part of the Schools Linking Network, a national organisation that works on forming Community Cohesion projects by pairing schools together. Lum Head Primary School and the North Cheshire Jewish School, both local to Gatley, have been closely linked since September 2009. All the children were encouraged to decide on a project to do something for their local community. Higher Level Teaching Assistant from Lum Head Primary School, Darryl Payne brought the children to the Scheme in 2010 and the pupils sat with the tenants and made a book of notes and sketches to help them to design their tiles. The children from Lum Head Primary School then visited the North Cheshire Jewish School to meet the other children to make the tiles. A pupil from the North Cheshire Jewish School, Guy Lipshaw, aged 8 said, ‘I helped the younger children to make the clay tiles in our kiln oven and I made lots of nice new friends. I made a tile with a dragon fly on the front of it. I really enjoyed this project and making the tenants smile when they go in their garden and see the wall plaques.’
A celebratory tile unveiling morning was held at the scheme on Friday 1 April in honour of all the children’s hard work and dedication to the project. Tenants from Mitchell House and Mitchell Close were joined for tile viewing in the communal gardens by children and staff from both schools, Cheadle MP Mark Hunter and staff from “Johnnie” Johnson Housing Trust. Mark Hunter said, ‘It was a real privilege to be invited to such a special day and it was so great to see the young and old working together on a wonderful project. I would like to thank everybody involved and for “Johnnie” Johnson Housing Trust and its tenants for making us all feel so welcome.’ The morning ended in the communal lounge with teas and lovely homemade cakes provided by the children. Everyone involved certainly had a great time!
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