Our School Fund

 

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Government funding for schools is under significant pressure.  Over the past ten years, we have seen a considerable reduction in the amount of money we have to invest in the facilities we provide for our students, and our ability to enrich their experience outside the classroom.

Schools across the country have been hit by rising prices - including massive jumps to our energy bills - and increasing staff costs that have not been fully funded by the government.

More than ever, we are relying on the generous voluntary donations that parents, carers and alumnae contribute to provide the very best for our students.
 

Our School Fund empowers our school community to voluntarily support our extra-curricular enrichment programme, and to help improve our facilities further.

We consider this provision a key part of our vision to provide a holistic experience for our young people, which focuses on social, cultural, and emotional capital as well as high academic achievement.

Two of our values are courage and endeavour.   Our School Fund gives us the resources to support our students in exploring these key development areas outside of their academic studies.
 

PAST PROJECTS IT HAS FUNDED

Over the past few years, projects that our School Fund has supported (either funding in full or helping us go beyond the ‘basics’) include:

• An annual contribution to fund enrichment such as extra music groups and PE clubs, transport to fixtures, and to facilitate a wide range of competition entries such as the Arkwright scholarship, robotics and computing competitions and related hardware.
   
• A major contribution to a Department for Education-funded project to significantly improve the security and safety of the school site. The School Fund contribution has enabled us to create a better pedestrian access to the front office, with more lighting and a more inclusive pathway.
   
• The replacement of the floor in the sports hall, ensuring the surface is high quality and appropriate for all different types of activities.
   
• The decoration and fit out of the ground floor of the new teaching block, to create three new classrooms and a study area for our growing sixth form.
   
• The refurbishment of two new science laboratories to complete our suite of thirteen science-specific teaching spaces – critical for a school like ours where chemistry, physics and biology are so popular.
   
• The school astrodome and observatory has been upgraded to ensure its wider use in lessons and beyond – something unique to our school.

FUNDING FUTURE PROJECTS

In the future, we are asking for regular voluntary donations to enable this investment in our enrichment activities to continue, as well as raise funds to support a number of new projects such as:

• We would like to reconfigure the school reception space, to make it a more inclusive and welcoming space for students, parents, carers and other visitors.
   
• We would like to upgrade our sixth form common rooms to better support independent study, in response to the increasing number of sixth form students.
   
• We would like to repair our long jump pit.
   
• We would like to replace our cookers in our food nutrition rooms.

• We would like to increase the breadth and depth of our enrichment projects, giving us the resources to employ coaches to support our students’ creativity such as visiting artists, authors, lecturers.  This would also cover the costs of competitions - our students often get to regional/ national finals, which are often cost-prohibitive.

Mrs Alexis Williamson
Headteacher