Last Friday I welcomed the Minister for Sport, and Faversham MP, Hugh
Robertson to the Romney Resource Centre in New Romney. We were there
to mark the launch of the alternative curriculum education provision
being delivered by the Charlton Athletic Community Trust. This is one
of the most challenging areas of education, and one of the most
important. The young people who are part of an alternative curriculum
programme have often become disengaged from mainstream schooling, yet
it is important that they can get their education back on track and
gain the qualifications they will need to be ready for work or further
studies. The Trust’s work in New Romney will provide education in core
subjects like maths and English, as well as other courses.
Charlton Athletic deserve a lot of credit for involving their
Community Trust in education projects like this, and in particular
some distance away from their home ground. There can be few football
clubs who would take on work like this, and it builds on the strong
association they have long enjoyed with communities in Kent. As the
representatives of a professional football club, the Trust can
approach this alternative education provision in a unique way, and
hopefully use sport to break down barriers in the classroom and
motivate and engage students who have previously found it difficult to
settle into their studies. I am looking forward to visiting them all
again later in the school year and I would like to send my best wishes
to Alan Dennington and everyone at the Trust involved with this work,
and of course to the young people attending the courses.
On Sunday I joined a special service on Saltwood village green to mark
the re-dedication of the war memorial. This service marked the
completion of a project launched by the Saltwood Village Society, with
the support of the Parish Council, to have the names of those
servicemen and civilians who lost their lives during the two world
wars, added to the war memorial. These names can now be found carved
into stone tablets next to the memorial cross, and the funding for
this worked was raised by the local community. Considerable research
was conducted by David Hughes to identify the names of all those who
lost their lives due to enemy action, and in particular those from the
village who had not been listed on the memorial in the church. This
was a very important project and it was particularly poignant to have
members of the families who lost loved ones present, as well as
veterans and representatives from the three armed services. Students
from Brockhill Park Academy and Saltwood primary school had also taken
part in a competition to produce a poem to be read at the
re-dedication service. The winning poem, entitled ‘Remember the
Soldiers’ was written by 10 year old Hannah Snowden from Saltwood
Primary. You can read her poem and also find out more about this
project on the village website www.saltwoodkent.co.uk
On Tuesday, I was also delighted to welcome pupils from Harcourt
Primary School in Folkestone for their tour of parliament.