A school has made a half term gift to dozens of pupils to help them get through lockdown.
Staff at Tonyrefail Community School decided to make a gesture to lift the spirits of some of their pupils stuck at home.
With half term upon us they tied up books into a goody bags and left them on the fence surrounding their campus in Porth. And what was expected to be a day-long exercise wound up after little more than an hour as it proved so popular.
Assistant head teacher Cara Marvelley said: “Reading is a big priority for us this year and we had plans to develop that. But then with lockdown we had to think outside the box about how we could help to develop it.
“We are an all-through school, from nursery to sixth form, and we developed the Tonyrefail reading journey, which is unique to each child’s reading experience.
“So because we haven’t got children in the building we decided to put some of the 44 books into bags on the fence and we let parents know through Parentmail and other ways of communicating with them."
Staff packed a selection of their chosen books in bags together with a bookmark, hot chocolate, and a tea bag for parents and invited families to come and collect them. Most of the bags were snapped up in just over an hour.
“People started arriving straightaway,” said Ms Marvelley. “It was really lovely to see how keen people were.
“We would have stayed all day but they went really quickly, which was a good thing because it was so cold!”
