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Senior School Charitable Work
Students and staff at Brentwood School participate in charitable work throughout the year.
Last academic year Brentwood Preparatory and Senior School students and staff raised over £19,000 for a wide range of charities.
Our Senior students take on fundraising events due to simply being inspired or having a personal link with a charity and the School has made some fantastic connections with local charities. Our Food Bank Challenge saw every form in the School collect over 40 boxes of essential and luxury items for the Brentwood Food Bank, which helped local families through a very difficult time.
Our students commitment to the charity programme is impressive and there have been some inspiring fundraising events taking place this year.
Another fantastic effort was from our Tennis Academy, who took part in a 24-hour Tennis Marathon at the National Tennis Centre and raised an incredible £10,800 for the charity Bright Ideas for Tennis!
At Brentwood School, our Houses are encouraged to support, visit, and raise funds and awareness for local charities during the academic year, including at key moments like the Christmas and Easter Fayres, which allow all ten Houses to fundraise for their chosen charities.
Through action, awareness and outreach, our students gain first-hand insight into different issues, which helps to inspire them further to make a change in the local community.
Additionally, each Year group supports a National charity and is allocated a week to fundraise for their chosen charity. Our students become engaged with the work of the charity and organise events to raise valuable funds for their charity. Last year, charities included Great Ormond Street (Year 7 raised over £420 on Silly Sock Day) and Place2Be (Upper Sixth raised over £230 on Comfy Shoe Day).
As a School, each term we focus on choosing an International charity to support. Our last three non-uniform days raised vital funds for Smile Train UK, the Parikrma Foundation, and Plan International, fetching over a fantastic £9250 in total.
By dividing up our areas of raising awareness and resources, students can learn about the multitude of charities and causes both near and far.
VSA
The Voluntary Service Activity, or VSA is formed of Year 9 to Upper Sixth students and meets at the normal activity slot of 3.30pm - 5pm on Tuesdays.
The VSA curriculum seeks to widen students’ awareness and interest in a wide range of community and international initiatives and encourages altruistic activism to create solutions and bring about change. The VSA allows pupils to make a real difference in the school community and locally.
Activities, service projects and lessons range from learning about topics such as the refugee crisis, how to contribute to conservation, attempts to reverse the effects of global warming, volunteering and the role of food banks and helping the elderly or those with specific needs, as well as learning key skills.
Volunteering for charities has been great! I’ve learned to understand and help people from different backgrounds, gaining empathy. It feels good to make a positive impact, even in small ways. This experience has made me more caring and open-minded.
The Michaelmas term’s programme includes workshops on global issues led by our Senior Leaders, formed of Upper Sixth students. This allows students to be aware of the various issues at hand and how they can influence change. For the remaining two terms, staff lead Tuesday activities in small groups, consisting of visits to local care homes, teaching first aid or sign language, and expanding our community garden.
Students are assigned a uniform, to further emphasise their identity as a VSA member, as well as being more practical than school uniform. The VSA is ever-expanding, and we are excited for another year of outreach and volunteer work!
Prep School Charity
At Brentwood Preparatory School, our pupils are encouraged to be enterprising and develop their own ideas and sense of responsibility. They learn to contribute to the wider community and through many pupil-led fundraising initiatives, their eyes are opened to the world beyond school.
Last year, Year 6 pupil Aoife also raised a hair raising £3475 for the Little Princess Trust in memory of her friend and former Brentwood Prep pupil Aaron. As a school, we also raised an incredible £3340 from the sale of our Prep Staff Charity Calendars for Great Ormond Street Hospital in memory of Aaron.
Our Christmas Jumper Day fetched over £745 for Plan International and the RSPCA, and together with our Christmas performances and Carol Service collections, we raised over £2000 for Havens Hospices, SNAP, Crisis, and Kids Inspire.
We were overwhelmed by the generosity of the Prep School community when we collected donations at our Harvest Festival assembly for the Brentwood Foodbank.
Other highlights include dressing up for World Book Day, where we collected over £240 for GOSH, our Year 6 Charity Afternoon which raised over £980, and our last Macmillan Coffee Morning, which fetched an incredible £317 for this worthwhile cause.
