Children's love for care home inspires a nation

A Gee Cross primary school has inspired thousands of other children across the country to spread love to local care homes following a class project.

Pupils at Gee Cross Holy Trinity Primary School have been writing to the residents of Polebank Hall Care Home after finding out that some residents had been lonely during the lockdown.

The six-year-olds have written letters to the 29 residents of the home and painted wooden ‘pocket hearts’ to give to each and every resident. Katrina Cole, teacher at Gee Cross Holy Trinity, said that the link between the school and the care home came entirely from the children.

“I teach Year 2, so back in September these children were only six years old. They were absolutely horrified to hear of the residents being lonely during the lockdown and not being allowed any visitors at all,” she said.

“We got in touch with the manager at Polebank, her name is Sarah and she allowed us to visit the residents. 

“The children said what they really wanted to do was to send them a letter so they wrote these really beautiful letters and inside each one they put a wooden heart which they decorated. They called it a pocket hug.

“They needed to know exactly how many care home residents there were because they were mortified at the idea of one of them being left out so we made sure we had 29 pocket hugs, 29 letters, all wrapped up as a pass the parcel.

“Sarah allowed us to visit on one Friday which was just amazing. We all had tears streaming down our faces, the residents were waving at the window. 

“Olga, who was 101, waved back like the queen and one lady kept coming back for another glimpse of the children. The children were holding up hearts with their hands to the residents and shouting to them, it was just beautiful.

“That’s why I love my job so much. These fantastic six-year-olds have got this endless capacity to love people that they’ve never met and that they’ve visited once.”

As recently reported, the prompt for the classroom discussion came from Picture News, an outlet that provides schools with resources to create engaging and exciting lessons. The class won a special Impact Award as a result from Picture News.

Katie Harrison, Co-Founder and Director at Picture News, said: “It’s completely snowballed and I think Katrina’s story and the passion from the children has really inspired children all across the UK. We estimate there are 2,500 schools taking part so the difference they will all make is wonderful - and it all started in Tameside.

“They got involved and undertook their own project with it. It really inspired us to do a Christmas national campaign that all schools could take part in.”