Traditionally, we celebrate our Family / Sports Day each Summer, with a large event, open to both our students and their families, and for the community to also join. For the last 10 years, it has been one of our most highly anticipated events each year, a chance to celebrate as one, socialise, and enjoy time together before the end of the year.
As we all know, both this year and last year have brought with them some highly unusual obstacles due to Covid-19 - however, we were adamant to still move forward with our event, just in a brand new way. Instead of holding our one large event, we instead held a series of events, a relay race if you will, from one location to the next, over the course of 3 weeks. Whilst we couldn't accommodate parents this time, we did still manage to have the most wonderful time with our students and team.
We started at our West London branch - Ealing - with a day filled with activities. Children of all ages were able to take part in physical activities like egg and spoon races and dance games, as well as a large art workshop - where children made their own families out of paper plates, paint and other craft materials.
Next week, we moved onto Stratford, our East London branch, where we had more than 100 children take part. For our youngest students, we held something very special - we invited a circus! The Flying Seagull Project, who has previously worked with Znaniye Foundation at their Easter Camp, joined us on-site for two whole hours, to give a performance to the children, and hold a workshop. The children learnt circus tricks such as juggling and were able to actively participate in the performance, shouting out answers and laughing the entire time.
Now whilst we didn't have our parents with us for our sports day component, we did have our teachers - who joined in on each race or game. Each class joined together to make a team, with a poster and chant to go with - the winning class was chosen by our director Aina, who awarded them a cash prize! Each student was also rewarded with a certificate of participation, badges, and hats. To capture the day, we were also joined by our photographer, who took wonderful photos of the days events and of each class, for us to keep in our memories forever.
To end the day in Stratford - we were even treated to a performance from our Dance Club partners - Dance With Us!
This month of festivities culminated in Chelsea, our Central London branch - where once again, we were joined by the brilliant Flying Seagull Project for another action-packed performance and workshop for our youngest children (we were even joined by our Ealing students as well, to make sure no one missed out!) Older students took part in sports activities in our various outdoor playground and managed to get all the teachers to join in again as well.
At the end of this final day, we then held a private parents outdoor book sale at collection time, to raise funds for our next charity projects, our Summer Clubs for Children on Free School Meals. (Find out more, and donate to the project here: https://www.znaniyefoundation.co.uk/events-1/ealing-summer-holiday-camp-1)