A Mind Boggling Challenge

Our fundraiser Anne-Marie turned her hand to teaching this week at the Manor Preparatory School to deliver a session about understanding Acquired Brain Injury during Year 5 and 6's PSHCE lessons. 

Pupils at the Manor Preparatory 

During this academic year we have been privileged to be chosen as the Manor Preparatory School's charity of the year. As part of this partnership our community fundraiser Anne-Marie Macmillan went into their school this week to work with year 5 and 6's during their PSHCE lessons to help them understand the difficulties of an acquired brain injury.

The pupils were challenged to some different tasks to simulate what it would be like to live with an acquired brain injury. Firstly the pupils wore special glasses that created the effect of sideways vision and wore rubber gloves to create a lack of feeling and had to try retrieve items from a pencil case (pictured left).

The pupils were also tasked with completing a jigsaw puzzle - seemingly an easy task - but they had to wear a mask with pin prick eye holes to simulate tunnel vision (pictured below). However, the most popular challenge of all was the 'seeing stars' game. This challenged the pupils to trace around a star with the opposite hand to which they normally write with and only look at the mirror reflection. Definitely the most difficult!

Wayne Rooney even made an appearance!

Rowan Knowles, Chairman of Friends of the Manor, contacted Anne-Marie after the event to say: "I enjoyed being present at the workshops very much, it was clear that the girls enjoyed them enormously too, and the safety message was so important."

These workshops came with a serious message as Mrs Knowles acknowledges; a lot of childhood acquired brain injuries are the result of cycling accidents. So remember to wear your helmet next time you are on your bicycle or scooter.

We would like to extend our thanks and appreciation to the Manor Preparatory School for welcoming our charity into their school and fundraising for us.

If you think you would like to fundraise for the Child Brain Injury Trust at your school then please email annemariemacmillan@cbituk.org.