Year 9 students recently visited Finchley Reform Synagogue

Our Year 9 students recently visited Finchley Reform Synagogue for a moving seminar to mark Holocaust Memorial day.  This year’s national theme, "Bridging Generations," emphasises our collective responsibility to carry forward the stories of survivors as they pass the torch of remembrance to the next generation.

During the visit, students participated in:

• Survivor Testimony: Hearing first-hand accounts from John Fieldsend who experience the Holocaust as a child and came to the UK through the Kinder Transport

• Interactive Workshops: The students were able to learn about the importance of being an 'Upstander' through the story of Irina Sendler and her work to save Jewish children by helping them escape the Polish Ghettos. 

• Synagogue Tour: The student were shown around the Ohel and were able to speak to a Rabbi from the synagogue and learn about the Torah and Jewish ceremonies. 

• Memorial Reflection: Closing the day with a solemn candle-lighting ceremony to honour the six million Jewish victims and millions of others murdered under Nazi persecution.

This experience encouraged our students to "bridge" the gap between history and the present, reflecting on how they can promote empathy and combat intolerance in their own communities.

We were very proud of how the students conducted themselves and engaged in all elements of the seminar with many of the helpers and organisers commenting on how lovely it was to see many of our students' answering questions throughout the seminar. The organiser of the seminar later contact the school with this message 

'The students were attentive and interested throughout the morning and seemed to have a good dialogue with our volunteers at the tables. They listened to the speaker, John Fieldsend really respectfully and asked some interesting questions.   We were all very impressed with them. They were very well behaved and were a credit not only to you and the school but also to themselves.'