School to give back to the community

The idea behind the project is to raise the profile of the school in the community while also ‘giving back’ to the community at the same time.

Each of our year groups has had a different focus, with the idea being that the students are able to develop both their leadership and teamwork skills through organising and running a wide variety of events.

It all started off with our year eight students, who did some fundraising for BBC Children In Need.

They did a litter pick around the local area, a massive cake sale and a beat-the-keeper penalty shoot-out, as well as a non-school uniform day.

All of this led to them raising £827 for Children In Need, which was a fantastic achievement.

As part of the school Community Project, our year nine students then managed to raise £382 for Macmillan Cancer Support through a tombola, a sweet sale and their Christmas Jumper Day towards the end of term.

The students also designed some Christmas cards which were hand-delivered to the local residents, along with some of the nursing homes in the area.

In some cases this was the only card the residents had actually received and they were very grateful to have been thought of.

They also helped out by collecting presents for the Wave 105 Mission Christmas, which gives gifts to children in the region who would not necessarily receive many presents during the festive period.

Students Courtney Myhill, Cassady Brooks and Cara Jeffery, all 14, were involved in the collection of more than 100 gifts.

They said: ‘We were glad to make these children’s Christmases special.

‘According to statistics, 60 per cent of British people live under the poverty line, and we felt that we could do something about this.’

Some of our students spent almost two weeks wrapping presents and preparing games that could be played at the pre-school, which was having its Christmas party.

On the day, six representatives from the school went to the pre-school.

They helped out with a range of games and dressed up as Santa’s elves to deliver presents to all of the children.

Our year seven students are currently in the process of arranging some fundraising events for Comic Relief in March, and our year 10 students are going to be planning their activities after Easter.