A new initiative has Narooma Public School students visiting the seniors at IRT Dalmeny to share experiences and hopefully form meaningful relationships.
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Over the next six months, the students will be visiting their new friends for a chat every two weeks.
The visits have been made possible thanks to the Narooma Golf Club generously allowing the school to make use of its courtesy bus for trip out to IRT Dalmeny.
Teacher Rob Rogers the new initiative came about after a very successful trip out to the retirement village in December were the students travelled out to sing Christmas carols to the seniors.
“They all had such a good time and enjoyed it so much, we thought we could make the visits more regularly,” Mr Rogers said.
The visits are now part of the school’s Community Program, where students choose an activity to help out different community groups and do a worthwhile activity.
“The trip to IRT has proved very popular with lots of students, mainly in Year 6, wanting to get involved,” he said.
IRT Dalmeny lifestyle coordinator Wendy Machin was also eager for the trips to continue as the seniors also gained a lot from interacting with the students.
“We hope they form relationships over the next six months and it is very much a two-way learning experience rewarding for both,” she said.
The students after getting off the golf club bus nervously approached the seniors and were sat down in small groups.
But the apprehension quickly disappeared and barriers broke down as the elderly started talking about their experiences as children, while the students were keen to pass on details about their school and home life.
For example, IRT resident Jim Hodges spoke to Lilly and Ellen about his early life at Caragabal near West Wyalong, where there was no high school in 1943.
“Dad said you can’t sit around the house and that I needed to get a job,” Mr Hodges said. “So I became a horse boy as back in those days we still used horse teams of up to 16 horses. We had 43 draught horses on the property.”
Ellen then told Mr Hodges about an aunt that looked after horses that were running in the Melbourne Cup.
Meanwhile on another table, young Aiyesha was keen to tell IRT resident Jessie all about her pet puppy Minty.
“Minty gets so excited when I get home every day, it’s like I’ve been gone a long time!”