EDUCATION
INSPIRING LIVES AT SEVENOAKS SCHOOL
CREATIVITY IS A GREAT SOURCE OF WELL-BEING, PROVIDING PURPOSE, FOCUS AND A CONNECTION WITH PROCESSES THAT CAN PRODUCE PLEASING AND SURPRISING RESULTS. WITH THIS IN MIND, SEVENOAKS SCHOOL HAS BEEN WORKING WITH HOSPICE IN THE WEALD BY HOLDING PRACTICAL ART SESSIONS WITH PATIENTS.
Students have led the sessions as part of the school’ s voluntary service programme, visiting the Hospice weekly to organise and assist with a range of practices including painting, ceramics and printmaking.
Emma Delpech, who teaches Art at Sevenoaks and runs the voluntary Art activities, describes it as a“ process-led space which encapsulates everything that is good about collaborating in the joy and freedom of making art”.
One of the students who participated says:“ It is a great feeling to take something you are passionate about and translate that into helping others, especially when it is direct and you can see the benefit your work is having. Each week we do something different; we’ ve made clay vegetables, prints, glazing and much more. We so enjoying spending this time with the patients at Hospice in the Weald. They enrich our lives and inspire us.”
Sevenoaks School has a strong tradition of community service, dating back to the early 1960s. It was the first English independent school to develop a Voluntary Service Unit( VSU), founded by Headmaster Kim Taylor and inspired by the pioneering Voluntary Service Overseas work of Alec Dickson and by Kurt Hahn’ s service units at Gordonstoun.
Today, all Sevenoaks pupils in Year 10 and above are involved in service. As well as helping the local community, a key aim of the service programme is to encourage empathy and to support students in becoming more sensitive to the needs of others. This is especially important in a large school with students from a wide variety of backgrounds and over 40 countries.
Once a week, an entire afternoon is dedicated to service activities, with students choosing from 57 different placements. They work with children, primary schools, older people, charity shops, people with disabilities, and on environment projects, enterprise and entrepreneurship schemes. Placements include Sevenoaks Foodbank, Oxfam, Riding for the Disabled and several local schools.
SEVENOAKS SERVICE
Every week, 435 students undertake voluntary service. They log over 30,000 hours per year. A student survey in December 2016 asked students about their voluntary service experience, finding that:
• 94 % think it is a valuable way to spend their time
• 98 % found their placement enjoyable
• 96 % found their placement rewarding
• 93 % would recommend their placement to someone else
This confirmed that the students take the voluntary service they do seriously and regard it as an important part of their school life.
Sevenoaks School aims to broaden every student’ s perspective on life outside school, stretching their interests and taking their experiences with them to make a difference in their own community and beyond.
www. sevenoaksschool. org
176