By Mrs Arrowsmith (Charities and Service Coordinator)

Supporting Global and Local Communities

We are proud to announce that the total raised for the school charities this year is a fantastic £13,518.26. Students throughout the school have participated in a wide range of activities to learn more about the charities and the work that they do, as well as raising funds to support them.

Our local charity is Bedford FACES (Family and Children Early help Services), which offers a wide range of support to struggling families in our local community. Students in Years 7-9 have been particularly involved in learning about this charity and have raised money through movie nights, cake sales, the Charity Fayre and the Tenner Challenge. It was good to see Year 8 students actively helping in preparations for the FACES Santa’s Grotto event.

This is the third year that we have supported United World Schools (UWS) as our global charity. We have raised awareness of UWS with form time activities and through our fundraising events. UWS is a UK registered charity that aims to “teach the unreached” by building and developing community schools for out-of-school children in Cambodia, Myanmar, and Nepal. There is a particular focus on supporting education for girls and preventing drop out, in order to create a generation of young Cambodians who can be active members of society.

In November, Year 9 and Lower Sixth students held a walk reflecting the long distances walked by many girls around the world in order to access education. Other highlights have included a Year 3 enterprise event; Sixth Form Lacrosse and Rounders evenings with Bedford School; Henna Art, ice cream sales and non-school uniform days as well as money raised during our Junior School “Beat the Sixth Former” event, ably run by our energetic Lower Sixth students.

Mrs Axford (Assistant Head) said: “I want to thank all staff and students for taking the time and effort to organise, run and support all the fund-raising events for FACES and UWS over the last twelve months.

“A final mention must go to Kimya Ghods in the Upper Sixth, our Service Captain in 2022-23 and her team, Aafiya Alam, Nina Leech and Jemima Peacock and to our current Service Team, Maisie Payne, Ella Allen, Serena Parsons and Maryam Hussain, for their enthusiasm and commitment to service and charity events this year.”