Carry My Story 2024

St John’s Primary School is situated in Dewsbury Moor and we are proud to be part of such a supportive community. We are always looking for ways to connect with the community and reach out to our extended St John’s Family. At St John’s, we ensure that our children have the opportunity to learn about our local area and take part in learning opportunities on our doorstep. When we heard about the Carry My Story Project, we knew we had to get involved… 

What is the Carry My Story Project?

Carry My Story is a project running across the Kirklees authority which provides children the opportunity to learn about themselves, learn about others and connect with their community on a deeper level. Children are encouraged to explore their identities and their heritage as well as getting to know their own community. As part of the project, the children will visit other schools to meet other children, they will be visited by people in the community who will share their identities with us and tell us their own stories.   The project provides a range of opportunities in the community as well as supporting us to develop our own identities that we can be proud of.

The project is carried out across Kirklees which gives us the chance to meet children from schools around the area which are similar and different to our own.  The children will make friends, gain confidence and have an amazing time learning to “Carry Stories”.

Who will be taking part in the Carry My Story Project?

Mrs Banham has been very lucky to be involved in such an exciting project.  This is the third year we have taken part in the Carry My Story Project, children from key stage one have been supported by year 4 children when carrying out important tasks.  The group meet weekly to work on the project and will continue to do so throughout this academic year.  There are many schools across Kirklees taking part in Carry My Story Project and we loved watching each school perform last year at the celebration event. After the success of last two years ,  we have been linked with Diamond Wood Community Academy for the third year running so we can continue to get to know them. 

What have we done so far?

Identity Boxes

We have been very busy! We created a beautiful, wooden identity boxes to send to Diamond Wood Community Academy. The children carefully thought about what makes them unique and key things about themselves. They then decorated their wooden boxes in pictures and colour to send to the children at Diamond Wood Community Academy. Inside the boxes, we put in precious rainbow coloured pebbles and a golden coin to use in our book vending machine. 

 We received an exciting parcel in the post from Diamond Wood too! We loved opening up the box! Inside it we found:

-  A letter

- Portraits 

- identity boxes

- photos

- maps showing how we can get to Diamond Wood

Carry My Story Celebration Event!

What an event to remember! The Carry My Story Group were invited to perform their stories in front of children from many schools across Kirklees. They were so brave, professional and respectful to the people who's stories they carried. 

As well as performing, we showcased our work and dedicated it to our link refugee, Maryna. Maryna loved our display so much and loved drinking our tasty lemonade. As a gift to Maryna, we gave her some samples of her favourite food, jam! In Ukraine, jam isn't very common so Maryna was amazed at how many jams are available in the UK. Mrs Haddlesey is an expert jam maker and made her a selection of jam, these included some exciting flavours: blackberry, strawberry , damson and even lemon, orange and courgette! 

As usual, the children of St John's made us incredibly proud. They were also the youngest children to perform. 

A huge well done to our St John's Super Stars!

A New Member of the St John's Family

As part of the Carry My Story Project, we needed to share a story from our community. Our community is so special to us and there are many stories to share but this year we chose to share the story of Mr and Mrs Brooke. 

Mr Brooke and his wife, have been very important to St John's Primary school for many, many years. They have worked incredibly hard in their charitable work and for St John's Church. When we spoke to Mr Brooke about being a member of our community we would share the story of, we never expected to hear such a heart warming story. 

The Never Ending Story

By Mr Brooke

We carried our story to Diamond Wood, who told it beautifully through poetry at the Carry My Story Celebration event. Following this, we were extremely lucky to have the opportunity to meet Durak! He was so flattered by his story being told that he wanted to meet us. Durak visited the Carry My Story group and was asked by Umaima (Green Class) if he would be part of our St John's Family. We are delighted to confirm that he said "Yes!!" and will be visiting us on a regular basis. We cannot wait to learn more about Durak.

A very special visit from a Ukrainian Refugee

In April, we received a special delivery in the post. It was delicately wrapped in fabric and a vibrant bow. The Carry My Story Group were so excited to open the parcel but they took their time and thought carefully about each layer they unwrapped.

Inside the beautifully wrapped parcel, was an extraordinary, wooden box from a lady named Maryna. Maryna is a refugee from Ukraine and has settled in Dewsbury in search or safety and a happy and peaceful life. The box was collaged in images of Ukraine and her identity which she was so proud of.  Inside the box was a sample of a vyshyvanka (traditional Ukrainian blouse), a sunflower badge, the story she would like us to carry and a letter explaining that she would be coming to visit!  

In preparation for the visit, we made her a gift, made banners and signs to make her feel welcome and prepared some questions for her.  The afternoon we met Maryna was wonderful. Maryna was so cheery and positive about life, even though she has been through a really hard time. 

Maryna taught us the saying "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade!"

A trip to Diamond Wood Community Academy!!

On Friday 17th May, the Carry My Story group went on a trip to Diamond Wood. We got to know our new friends, was showed around school, had lunch together and made some very exciting story spoons!

Photos coming soon!

Welcome to St John's Primary School!

On Monday 20th May, we welcomed some children from Diamond Wood into our school. We got to know our new friends, showed them our school and had lunch together. As part of our day of fun, we planted some sunflower seeds as they were Maryna's favourite flower. we are hoping these sunflowers grow beautifully so we can take them on our trip to the Carry My Story Celebration Event in July.

To find out what we did next, keep checking the school website!

We will continue to update the page with more information about our Carry My Story Journey.

Carry My Story 2022

St John's Primary School, started the Carry My Story project in 2022. We loved uploading our steps on the School website where our parents, carers and friends could read about what we had been doing.  Take a look below to see what the project looked like last year.

School Visits 2022

During our trip to Diamond Wood Community Academy in 2022.  We had a tour of the school, talked about our Identity Boxes, played some games and got to know our new friends. It was really exciting having lunch in their Art Studio and playing in their playground.

Our friends from Diamond Wood Community Academy came to visit our school too! We showed them around our classrooms, took them to St John's Church for a tour and a talk from Mr Brooke and did some activities guessing the smell and taste of foods from our heritage countries.  We loved spending another day with our new friends.

In June 2022, we are going to meet our friends from Diamond Wood Community Academy in Crow Nest Part for a picnic and to play some games. 

Another exciting delivery 

We received a parcel in the post. At first we thought Diamond Wood had sent us another gift but to our amazement it was from someone else!  The box was carefully wrapped and addressed to us with a Carry My Story label attached. Inside there was the most beautifully decorated, heart shaped wooden box.  The box was completely covered by a collage of images and was carrying a story and an object inside...

Latifa

This beautiful box was made and  sent by Latifa, a refugee originally from Afghanistan and now living in Huddersfield. Inside the beautifully decorated box was a her story and a special object.  Latifa was from Afghanistan and lived there as a child. Her story tells us about happy times, sad times and scary times in her life. She moved to Pakistan as she didn't feel very safe. Latifa's now husband, was a refugee too and travelled to the UK too; he travelled in some dangerous conditions but found safety after a year of travelling. 

A special message from Latifa "Be kind and respectful- You never know what someone has been through".

A Special Visitor in 2022

After receiving the story and box from Latifa, she came to visit us in School! We were so excited to finally meet our link refugee. To make her feel welcome, we put signs up outside and around school in Dari, we made her a heart shape gift using sticks, and put on a spread of lovely food to share with her. 

When Latifa arrived, she told us more about her story, her life now and herself. She was really lovely and smiley. Latifa was really impressed with how grown up we were and how respectful we were towards her box and her story. We showed Latifa around school and introduced her to all the children and teachers. We had such a wonderful time getting to know her. 

Friends Reunited 2022

We could not wait to share our refugee story with our Diamond Wood friends! One sunny day, we met our Diamond Wood friends in Crow Nest Park for a picnic and to play with them. We share our story about Latifa and they shared their story from their link refugee. We also shared a St John's Story with them too. We told them the story of Faizah, Faizah is a parent of one of our Carry My Story children. She told us all about how she moved to Dewsbury from Pakistan. We loved learning about Faizah's story and sharing it with our friends. They loved to hear about how she lived in Pakistan and had an arranged marriage with a Pakistani man from England. After they were married, Faizah waited a year before joining him here in Dewsbury. She said she didn't know any English but everyone helped and supported her. She learnt english in college. 10 years later, Faizah and her husband had a baby and this baby changed their life.