Community Links
We believe that it is important for our children to grow up valuing the importance of serving the local community. Through much of this work pupils begin to recognise that they can improve their surroundings, support local charities and businesses and share time and precious resources to make things better for everyone in their community. We work within the community in a number of different ways.
Titsey Rotary Club have supported the school at a number of Easter fund raising events and have awarded bursary places for many of our most vulnerable pupils at a local tennis club and athletic clubs.
Age UK We were inspired by the Cadbury's "No Words" promotion which had been designed to highlight how many elderly people go without speaking to any other living soul each day in our country. We decided to write letters to residents of our local care homes and we hand delivered 190 letters telling residents of our favourite hobbies, our pets, our school, our likes and dislikes. The children were thrilled to receive some letters back from residents who shared their life experiences and posed some great questions! Our School Council visited some of the homes to read their own letters aloud. We repeated this successful project with "letters of kindness" being sent out during lockdown.
Hazelwood School heard our plea on social media when we had some beautiful honeysuckle plants stolen from the front of the school within hours of them being planted. Our sincere thanks go to Hazelwood for donating and planting 5 new plants!
Kind neighbours have donated boxes of new books, new trees and plants, topic resources and monetary donations for school trips - one local resident was so kind that he bequethed the school enough money for us all to visit the seaside. We have also worked with a neighbour to improve a Hedgehog Highway between our properties and we have produced hedgehog tunnels to make this even easier! We sincerely thank them all.
Titsey Fine Arts Society have supported the school by funding trips to London art galleries and providing the services of an artist in residence to give workshops in school to several of our most promising young artists.
Oxted Community Volunteers have provided us with a wonderful group of adults who listen to our pupils read on a regular basis.
Our pond and wildlife area was refurbished by an ex-pupil of the school and photos of his work at our school are now used to help promote his business. The Forest School area is now also used by a local Nursery group as well as by our own classes.
We support our local infant schools by being reading partners, by sending our Sports Crew out to help with their Sports Days, by sending our Choir out to sing at their Christmas church celebrations and of course by working closely at transition time. We share teacher training wherever practicable and meet regularly to agree holiday dates and discuss any projects where we may be able to share resources.
We offer work placements to many of our ex-pupils now at secondary schools, colleges or universities.
The local branch of Lions have been able to take our old school laptops, refurbish them and then distribute them back into the community to families who have not been able to stay connected during lockdowns due to them having no technology available.
The charities we support through our fundraising activities are always chosen by the children. Over recent years we have supported Four Paws, Children in Need, Red Nose Day, Sports Relief, Cancer Research UK, Anti-Bullying, the Children's Society, Downs Syndrome and Great Ormond Street.