23 students from Manor CE Academy last week completed a ‘team work’ module for their Archbishop of York Youth Trust Young Leaders Award by delivering four activities for residents at the Amarna House Care Home Acomb.

Working in collaboration with Attend, a national charity organisation, Manor CE Academy approached Amarna House Care Home Acomb to volunteer a project as part of the Year 10’s Leadership Award.  The students put together four activities suitable for a range of care needs, which included decorating plant pots and then filling with seeds for residents’ rooms, decorating and icing cakes, making hot chocolate mouse packs and showing a film in the residents lounge.

Izzi Barthow, Lay Chaplain, at Manor CE Academy said: “It has been really good for students to figure out what they need to bring with them and also the actual running of the activity  - how to talk and communicate with people who are older than them and who also struggle with dementia, so it’s been an excellent opportunity for them.”

Jane Fletcher, care home volunteer said: “I think it is a fantastic idea and it is great to see the interaction between the students and residents.  They’ve done extremely well and have been really organised, bringing a bit of the outside in for the residents.  It is good and insightful for the young people to see life in a care home, something they have perhaps not experienced before”.

Beth Wardley, a student taking the Archbishop’s Young Leader Award said: “We chose for residents to decorate plant pots to plant seeds in to grow in their room. Although there is a garden outside, this is something that we hope they will enjoy looking at in their rooms. It may remind them of this day and what they enjoyed about it.”