Kirkcaldy school cheers up Fife's elderly with DVD

P6 pupils at Fair Isle Primary School came up with the idea after learning that care home residents are missing out on visits from friends and family due tio the coronavirus outbreak.

Class teacher, Claire Keith, said the impetus to make the film came from the children themselves.

“We've been working with care homes throughout the year,” she said.

“The children have been talking about the coronavirus and they'd seen on the news how the outbreak was affecting family visits to care homes, so they asked if they could do things to cheer up the residents.

“Initially they wanted to go and see them but I explained to them that we can't have any contact with them, so they suggested making a DVD that we could send to them instead.”

Included on the DVD will be sit down exercise interspersed with some jokes, and the children have also been busy writing letters and postcards, and making posters to send to care home residents.

Claire said: “I spoke with Paula Paterson at Kingdom Homes who said she will send it out to all their homes in Fife.

“She thinks it will make a big difference.”

Paula, Activities and Events Manager for Kingdom Homes called the gesture “wonderful”.

She said: “Claire sent me a clip of it and it had me in tears.”

“It's just amazing. We're trying to do things in here as well at Kingdom Homes. We have 'Operation Cheer' where the community have really been getting involved and what the children at Fair Isle are doing is fantastic.

“The community is reaching out to us and we're reaching out to them and this film is amazing.”

The children now have plans to put together a sing-a-long DVD, featuring old time songs such as ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’.

Claire added: “This just struck me as something incredibly generous and kind – and they came up with it all by themselves.

“It's pretty amazing because they're all 10-year-olds basically!”