Service and Community Review
As ever the co-curriculum has been central to our pupils’ experience of Sevenoaks School: it enhances the learning environment, it allows them to develop the life skills needed to work with other people and, in an academic environment, it also allows individuals to differentiate themselves and find their own niche that they can enjoy for the rest of their lives.
This year, as part of the school’ s strategic vision, we initiated the Institute of Service and Entrepreneurship. Ian Fletcher has taken over our existing Service operation which is already well established. Meanwhile Julie Redding has been appointed to the new position of Head of Entrepreneurship and has already launched a number of initiatives, both one-off events and ongoing activities.
Pupils have been engaged in a large number of charitable fundraising events and activities for a variety of causes across the year. The Institute of
Service and Entrepreneurship will evolve over the next few years but it aims to engage every pupil and use service and charitable activities as vehicles to develop pupils’ entrepreneurial skills in a social context.
Our Mulamula project in South Africa had reached completion, so this year we started a new PROMO service trip to Cambodia in conjunction with United World Schools. Money that pupils raised funded the building of UWS Spong School which pupils then visited and taught at. This is now expected to become a regular location for some of our pupils to visit, fulfilling CAS requirements for the IB.
Our outreach programme to the local community has developed hugely during the past year, and as a result Sevenoaks was shortlisted in the Community Impact category of the TES Schools Awards 2017.
Geoffrey Stanford
64 SERVICE AND COMMUNITY