Primary school Christmas video supports food bank

A primary school has filmed a special Christmas video to raise awareness of food banks.

Staff at Coleham Primary School in Shrewsbury started making an annual Christmas video, five years ago, during the pandemic, to spread some festive cheer to their students and parents.

Assistant head teacher Chrissie Harris said this year the school had teamed up with Shrewsbury Food Hub and wanted to recognise the hard work that teams there do distributing food to those in need.

Ms Harris said she hoped the video would help prompt donations to the food bank and "give something back to the community".

Doug Williams works in digital media for the school and has been involved in producing the videos from the start.

"The children love it, the parents really like it too, it's a worthwhile thing, I always look forward to making it for them," he said.

He added that staff had been talking about creating a charity video to mark the fifth anniversary for several years.

Ms Harris said: "We try try a cause minimum disruption to the children's learning, but equally we know these additional curriculum experiences offer lots of valuable input to the children's lives".

Pupils who have been learning about how the food bank helps the community, hosted their own Friday night dinner for parents in the school hall, using surplus food that would typically go to waste.

Alexa, eight and Lola, 10, are two of those featured in the charity video.

Lola said she loved watching her teachers perform in the videos from previous years and was really keen to get involved.

Alexa added: "It's really fun seeing them doing this every single year, because it encourages people to be in the Christmas spirit."

Staff and a handful of students filmed the video in secret and will sit down with the rest of the school later this week to enjoy the final version.

Follow BBC Shropshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.