At The Priory School we believe that encouraging students to engage in charity and community work is an invaluable part of the wider curriculum. Charity work is a way for students to demonstrate our school values of respect and responsibility.
Charity Fundraising
Each year there is a designated Charity Week during which students are encouraged to hold fundraising events in school and also to take part in lunchtime activities organised by the charity and community prefects, all with the aim of raising money and awareness.
In 2021 we raised £3,484. At times fundraising was difficult due to the pandemic, but we felt it essential to support in ways we could. So far this academic year we have raised £2,226 for numerous charities such as Save the Children, Children in Need, MacMillan, Genetic Disorder Charity (Jeans for Genes) and Breast Cancer Support. Our next big charity support will be Comic Relief.
We have also been doing various awareness campaigns throughout the year coordinated by the SEN department around some of our more common SEN needs. We have been developing our understanding around Dyslexia Awareness Week, ADHD Awareness Month, Down Syndrome Awareness Day and Autism Awareness Day.
Further to this, we have been increasing the support for our LGBTQ+ students and raising the profile of the diverse community around school. This has included raising money for Stonewall and increasing the students’ knowledge of the important work they do.
Throughout the academic year 2022-2023, we are looking to support local charities which the students have been researching and learning about. The students in each year group have voted on a local charity they would like to support. We aim to raise money for the following local charities next year:
Year 7 – Feed Up, Warm Up
Year 8 – Luna Animal Rescue
Year 9 – Phase
Year 10 – Space
Year 11 – Garden House Hospice
Community Work
At The Priory School we pride ourselves on being a community school. We encourage students to be active citizens through volunteering, charity work and working with the local community.
During COVID times this hasn’t always been easy, but as restrictions have eased we have been out supporting our community. We have supported ‘Feed Up Warm Up’, litter picking with Bamboo Brush, and going into primary schools and ‘teaching’ younger students, and also visited and interacted with Elmside Care Home. We aim to continue our community work and raise more money for local charities such as Phase and Garden House Hospice. We raised over £500 for the Hitchin Food Bank this year, but aim to raise more than this next year to support our local families in Hitchin and Letchworth.