By Mrs Johnson, Charities Co-Ordinator

Year 9 have now completed their half term of fundraising for Ashiana, having run ‘Masked Singer’ and ‘Would I Lie to You’ events featuring our staff, plus ever popular bake sales and a “Wear Purple Day.” Well done to the Year 9s for raising valuable funds which will go to help Ashiana in providing refuge services for South Asian, Turkish & Iranian women.

The next year group to fundraise for their chosen charity is Year 8, who have chosen  Beat – a charity which supports individuals suffering with eating disorders.  To get us in the mood for Pancake Day they will be holding their own event a day early on Monday at breaktime. This will be followed up by two bake sales, a teacher dance event and a guess the number of sweets in a jar competition. 

In the meantime, our Humanitarian Reps held their very own bake sale earlier this week, made with only Fairtrade products. Next week, our Reps will be heading over to Junior School to talk about Fairtrade to Year 4.

Our Modern Foreign Languages department held the latest foreign language film evening earlier this month with pupils, staff, parents, families and friends of NHEHS invited into school to watch a showing of “Monkey King: Hero is Back.” The MFL films have raised a fantastic £400 for the Harrow Club so far! The Harrow Club runs five youth clubs in the boroughs of Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham as well as a range of projects covering sports, arts and performing arts, media, music, digital and specialist work such as their gangs project, motor vehicle workshops and educational programmes aimed at reducing school exclusions

In March, we are looking forward to holding a new ‘sponsored sleepout event’ where students will be sponsored to experience a night of outdoor living in aid of Care 4 Calais. Students will be encouraged to spend the night outdoors to show solidarity with people who are street homeless. They will be encouraged to build their own shelter out of cardboard boxes to keep themselves as warm as possible for the night.  We have worked with Care 4 Calais on a number of initiatives this year including a Toy Bag appeal, coats and clothing appeal and more recently a laptop and mobile phones appeal. Thank you for your generosity on this latest tech appeal – we will be delivering the laptops and devices to Care 4 Calais shortly.

The following two weeks will see Comic Relief (March 18th) – watch out for news on our activities and also World Water Day 0n March 22nd, which will adopt the theme of appreciation in lunchtime and formtime events, with fundraising for Water Aid on the day. 

Our Year 10 and 11 students are continuing with their volunteering on Tuesdays as part of their enrichment helping in the community. We already send students out to St David’s and Chestnut Lodge Care Homes in Ealing and are also hoping to be able to start visiting Downhurst Residential Care Home and Blakesley House soon. Also for their volunteering, two of our students have recently started visiting Ark Soane Academy in Acton where they go to listen to Year 7s read.

Helping Ukraine

Our staff will be holding a charity morning tea in the staffroom, for the charity the students are supporting. The first one will be supporting UNICEF’s humanitarian work in Ukraine.  There will also be blue and yellow knitted flowers to wear on sale with all proceeds going to the charity. Our Humanitarian Reps will be holding a Bake Sale in aid of UNICEF’s humanitarian work in the country on Wednesday March 2nd as well as holding a “Wear Blue/Yellow Day” on Friday 11th March for the same excellent cause.

Thank you for your continued generosity and support for our charities’ initiatives.