Educating children on the correct care of cats and kittens is a key aim of Southport & District Cats Protection and one that the charity takes very seriously. For that reason, we are inviting small groups to come to our branch and see the work we do or our education officer Wendy Greener can visit your group. You will receive a talk on cat care and the history of the Cats Protection, and visitors to our branch will be able to have a look around as well as been able to pet the cats and kittens in our care. We hope this service is of interest to schools, clubs, groups and societies within our commuinty. This may be of particular interest to Brownie Groups which have recently been revised and the new 'Friends to Animals' Badge criteria means that our branch can be involved with helping them to achieve their badge. All we ask in return is a donation to our branch for your/our visit.

The Cool Cats Club can be incorporated into the National Curriculum and schools can become members of the kitten club through our headquaters were they have produced three teaching packs free-of-charge to schools:

Purrfect! is designed to be used in nurseries or playgroups. It provides cat-related poems, stories and artwork to use with children of a nursery age. The resource is designed to encourage children to treat cats with respect and consideration from a young age, and to be a source of fun and engaging educational activities. To order your free copy of the 'Purrfect!' education pack, please email your name, address and contact number to jen.snape@cats.org.uk or call her on 08707 708633.

A Primary Resource for Key Stages 1 and 2 Designed to offer flexible support for Literacy and Numeracy at Key Stages 1 and 2 and equivalent activities in the 5-14 Scottish Curriculum, the resource includes poems, stories and numerical data, which have all been especially created for use by 7-11 year-olds. Each story comes with a series of word banks and word-level activities that support the exploration of adjectives, adverbs, metaphors, similes, synonyms and antonyms, as well as a concept map of additional sentence and text-level activities, plus ideas for extension work. One story also provides a series of structured numeracy exercises relating to money calculations and the data bank supports a range of calculation, percentage and fraction activities, as well as the manipulation and presentation of a variety of cat related data. The poems act as a stimulus for a pupil's exploration of the use of language to convey feelings, emotion and humour and are a springboard from which pupils can create, and display or perform their own poetry. A range of traditional and modern poetry styles are included. Cat-related data provide opportunities for extension activities based around numeracy. Teacher's notes, curriculum mapping and concept maps provide all the information needed to integrate the resource into schemes of work. The resource will also support the primary curriculum for citizenship and PSHE, looking at themes of relationships, care for others, responsibility, looking after money and the role of voluntary organisations and charities.To order your free copy of Cats in the Classroom for Key Stage 1 and 2, please email your name, address and contact number to cats@educationconnections.co.uk or call 08700 133 433. Please quote Ref: 003 when requesting the resource.

A Secondary Resource for Key Stage 3 Using the themes of animal rights, pet care, responsibility, community and the media to explore the use of language and information to inform, provoke and persuade, this resource provides structured but flexible support for English, PSHE and Citizenship at Key Stage 3 and within the 5-14 Curriculum in Scotland. A bank of resources including poems, prose extracts, historical accounts and role-play scenarios are used to stimulate debate and discussion leading to a project of creating an advertising campaign to promote positive cat care. Pupils will explore the role of advertising and the media in influencing attitudes and behaviour. Linking the messages and campaign approaches that they find most appealing to the issues that they are tasked with conveying. ICT is central to creating the materials, which can be used as part of a peer-led learning project within a secondary school or in partner primary schools. Extension activities include a community research project that underpins campaign work with the local media. With detailed curriculum links and teachers notes, the resource and individual activities can be easily integrated into schemes of work at Key Stage 3.To order your free copy of Cats in the Classroom for Key Stage 3, please email your name, address and contact number to cats@educationconnections.co.uk or call 08700 133 433. Please quote Ref: 003 when requesting the resource.

We hope the 'Come and visit us' Service, Southport & Disrict Branch is providing will be of interest to all young person groups, our co-ordinator Wendy Greener is a retired school teacher and has years of knowledge and experience. For further information and/or to book a visit, please email Wendy at:- pwgreener@blueyonder.co.uk.