The Pilgrimage for Nature passed through Shap this week (wb 04.10.21)!

It is a collective walk from London to the climate conference in Glasgow taking place in November this year. They will be collecting stories, dreams and hopes from people they meet along the way, including us here at Shap CE School!

Amongst the walkers are theatre makers and artists who are curating their pilgrimage as an extended piece of promenade theatre that will result in a final performance presented at The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow.

We invited the pilgrims into school to do an assembly with Blencathra and Helvellyn children. They shared their journey with our children, telling them how they have been 'listening to the land' enroute - listening to flora and fauna, including us humans!

I was incredibly proud of our children's contributions to the discussions, sharing their concerns, ranging from worries about litter and traffic pollution, to specific concerns about squirrels, and plastic used around trees!

The pilgrims collected messages from our children that they will take to the Climate Change Conference - the messages that the children relayed were thoughtful, considerate and insightful, here's hoping they will make a difference!

We took the opportunity to perform our school anthem to our visitors, and they in turn taught us a Danish folksong about a robin - I know that the next time our children see a robin, they will surely be reminded of our visitors!