By Mrs Arrowsmith (Charities and Service Coordinator) 

We are proud to announce that the total raised for the school charities this year is a fantastic £14,094.31. 

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 Year 7, 8 and 9 have been thoroughly involved in learning about this charity and creating activities to raise money for them, including movie nights, cake sales, the Year 9 Charity Fayre before Christmas, the creative Tenner Challenge and of course the ever-popular discos held jointly with Bedford Prep. Each event not only raises money but increases the students’ awareness of FACES and the work that they do. It was great to see Year 8 students actively helping in preparations for the FACES Santa’s Grotto event, and we received many thoughtful contributions towards this seasonal event. 

We continue to support United World Schools (UWS) as our global charity. We have raised awareness of UWS with form time activities, through our fundraising events and through an inter house poster competition. UWS is a UK registered charity that aims to “teach the unreached'' by building and developing community schools for out-of-school children. We have a partner school, the Dal Phnom School in Ratanakiri Province, Cambodia. 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. Various groups in school have contributed to running events over the course of the year, ranging from henna hand art to sunny day ice cream sales, via the Valentine’s Day sweet celebration of friendship 

I would like 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 Maisie Payne in the Upper Sixth, our Service Captain in 2023-4, and our current Service Team, Lucy Scott, Sneha Patel, Ankita Somisetty and Hannah Chirayil, for their enthusiasm and commitment to service and charity events this year.