Our volunteers have been busy working with four local charities over the past two terms. Here’s what they have been up to so far this year with a look ahead to what’s coming up later this term.

Ealing Mencap

Following several meetings, our Ealing Mencap Event Co-Ordinators Committee have been working extremely hard to come up with a fantastic and fun event for the people supported by the charity.

Our team of 11 students from Years 7-9 plus our three Year 10 Volunteer Reps have decided to hold a Fun Fayre activity session (date tbc) which involves jewellery making, mindfulness colouring and origami, board games, water colour painting as well as cake decorating and photo booth fun.

Some of our students are also working with Ealing Mencap on the Digital Developers Project, with three girls from Year 11 and 3 from Year 10 having successfully applied for their roles earlier this school year. The girls are visiting the Ealing Mencap headquarters in Perivale every fortnight to meet the service users themselves and gain an understanding of how the service works. They will then take on responsibilities for developing the digital face of Ealing Mencap, both assisting Ealing Mencap and helping to spread the word about the charity’s work in this area by reaching out to members of the local community. The girls will create blogs, vlogs, newsletter articles as well as tweeting and updating the digital face of Ealing Mencap.

Ealing Mencap supports people with both learning and physical disabilities and so for some of these people communication can be a huge barrier to their everyday lives. With our help, we hope that we can develop a piece of technology to aid them in overcoming this barrier. So, in addition, Issey in Year 12 has taken on an exciting project brief for Ealing Mencap which involves developing an app to aid adults with communication difficulties.

Drayton Green Reading Programme 

The Drayton Green Reading Programme is in full swing with eight Year 12 students currently attending Drayton Green Primary School on a weekly basis to read with children. Our students have played a crucial part in developing the young children’s literacy and reading skills. The Deputy Head at Drayton Green recently gave feedback on how the girls have been getting on: “I would just like to say how much the children at Drayton Green absolutely love working with your students and how appreciative the teachers are for their help. It really is making such a difference.”

Ealing Age Concern

The Ealing Age Concern Project currently comprises six Year 12 students who made successful applications to take part and have started their volunteering at Greenford Community Centre. Typical volunteering activities include the provision of lunch, playing games including bingo and general befriending and chatting with the elderly people to combat loneliness.

The Log Cabin 

Our Year 10s will be holding their annual party for the Log Cabin on June 12th and the Year 10 forms have been busy planning the activities for the event during form time and PSHCE.

Kids Cookery School

Last term we launched our Kids Cookery School volunteering opportunity and received a fantastic uptake of 47 students who attended the initial interest meeting with 30 of those students already having made successful applications. An induction session was held in March, run by the CEO of the charity Fiona Hamilton to give the girls more information and arrange their volunteering schedule for the upcoming months.

Weekly Charity and Whole School Events

Finally, the spring term saw some brilliant weekly form charity events from an exciting Easter egg hunt from 7T to  8E’s teacher rap battle! We have raised money for some fantastic charities including Amend, GOSH, Water Aid, Centre point, Lymphoma Action and Home Start Ealing. So far the girls have raised over £7,000 pounds for charity this year – what a great achievement!