Knowsley Online

Kind Huyton Students up for national award

Kind hearted pupils from a Knowsley school have won an award for helping their neighbours fight crime and their fear of crime.

Anti social behaviour was causing some problems for residents of a sheltered housing scheme near Huyton Arts and Sports Centre for Learning.

Some pupils had been using Marshfield Close as a short cut to and from school and this had caused some damage and made the residents anxious.

The students realised that fear of crime had become the problem and this  stemmed from a lack of any relationship between the two groups.

They set up a project to promote a positive image of young people and invited the residents to come to some of the after school activities.

The residents held sessions to teach the young people how to knit and the students entertained them with acting, singing and bingo.

Local families invited to mini toddler walks

Knowsley families looking for a fun way to occupy their toddlers have been invited to a series of mini toddler walks being held in October and November.

The themed walks are suitable for prams and buggies and each session also includes children’s activities and refreshments.

The walks will set off from Stadt Moers Park Visitors Centre, Pottery Lane, Whiston. Sessions will run from 9.45am until 11.30am.

Walks and activity sessions will be held:

• Friday October 29th, Halloween Story
•  Wednesday November 3rd, Whizz, Bang, Whoosh
•  Wednesday November 10th, Nature Trail
•  Wednesday November 17th, Marvellous Mini Beasts

All children must be accompanied by an adult and those attending should wear clothing and footwear suitable for the weather conditions. 

For more information contact Paula Thomas at the Knowsley Health & Wellbeing Community Health Development Team on 0151 285 6016.

Driving people to walk.

A project to get children to walk to school in Knowsley has led to a massive fall in the number of cars around the building.

Staff at St Leo’s and Southmead primary in Whiston say traffic fell dramatically at pick up and drop off times in Walk to School week.

More children than ever have made their way on foot with parents or carers.

Walk to School Weeks operate twice a year throughout Knowsley and are part of a national initiative to encourage people to leave their cars at home.

The last initiative in May saw more people taking part than ever before at St Leo’s and Southmead and staff are hoping the October week will be even better.

They feel a walk to school can improve a pupil’s performance during the day and gives parents or carers a chance to talk to them about the day ahead.

There have been a number of fun activities at the school to promote the week, including a chance for the children to come into school with green hair and green faces.

Knowsley’s Walk to School Weeks are supported by the Road Safety and Travel Plan Team and TravelWise Merseyside who give the schools wall charts, stickers and posters to promote the scheme.

The project runs in May and October.

Knowsley Health & Wellbeing brings children’s services to the community

Europe’s biggest and busiest children’s hospital, Alder Hey has made its services and expertise available within a community setting.

In a first of its kind partnership, Knowsley Health & Wellbeing has teamed up with experts at the hospital to bring ‘Alder Hey @ Knowsley’ to locals. The new service means that children needing certain types of specialist paediatric care will no longer be required to attend the Liverpool-based hospital, but will have easy access much closer to their home.

Four Knowsley Primary Care Resource Centres now host the Alder Hey @ Knowsley service, and have the expert staff and skills required to treat children with ailments including: asthma, eczema and growth concerns.

Three members of specialist Alder Hey staff run clinics in Knowsley, practising for a minimum of 18 hours per week.

Out patients and follow up appointments are currently available through Alder Hey @ Knowsley, and over the next few months, ear, nose and throat (ENT) services will also be launched, meaning that illnesses such as glue ear can also be treated closer to home.

Rosemary Hawley, MBE Chair of NHS Knowsley said: “Our research has shown that many families in Knowsley don’t have their own transport, so getting to Alder Hey regularly isn’t convenient for them at all. At Knowsley Health & Wellbeing we are committed to bringing quality services closer to home and aim to do this via our new service.

“Alder Hey @ Knowsley means that families will not need to travel into Liverpool to receive the top class services that Alder Hey offers, and the patient experience for the children involved will be much less daunting.

Democracy at first hand.

The pint-sized representatives of two primary schools in Knowsley have had a taste of the nation’s democracy.

Members of the school councils at St Mary and St Paul’s school in Prescot and Greengates school in Halewood visited the Palace of Westminster.

It was part of a project on rights and responsibilities and they were treated to a tour of both the House of Lords and House of Commons.

Marianne Mowatt, associate head of the two schools, said: “This helped them make the link between the democratic process that saw them elected to the school council and the democracy that works in the Houses of Parliament.

“The twelve children we took were aged between seven and ten and our tour guide loved them – they were the youngest in the House that day but asked so many questions.

“Most of them had heard about Gordon Brown and David Cameron and they stood where the leaders stand in the Commons and fired questions at each other.”

The children had been invited down to London by Eddie O’Hara, the retiring MP for Knowsley South.

The trip included a ride on the London Eye wheel where they got a bird's eye view of the Palace of Westminster.

The children will share what they learned on the trip with the other pupils at the schools and there will be more work on what democracy means.

Marianne added: “At the moment, the two schools are working together under one executive head while some restructuring takes place and some of the pupils had never met each other before.

“But they behaved impeccably and got on so well – it was a long day for them but a really memorable one as well.”

Greengates school council representatives Saskia Campbell and Jennifer Bentley enjoy a birds eye view of the Palace of Westminster.

Steering group visits the new Hospital

The Saveourburnsunits steering group today paid a visit to the New Look Whiston Hospital pictured are from left to right are D Sutcliffe Cllr D Williams Cllr D Corkill M Pritchard Cllr M Dovovan Mrs W Wiseman Mr P Wiseman .

We where glad to see the new unit which we saved for the whole of the North West region to use and the state of the art and cutting edge design and Latest technology that will be used It will be the 21st century health care we could wish for says one if the campaigner's as well as the state of the art operating burns theatre And we wish then all the best and it just shows what the Government are doing for the NHS in the north west

The Steering Group
http://www.saveourburnsunits.org.uk/
e mail [email protected]

Video: Whiston writer Tommy Kearney on his new hit play

Below: Whiston-born-and-bred Tommy Kearney talks about Little Boy, his latest play, which had its Liverpool premiere at the Homotopia festival this week.