Community publication

Emanuel School is very much part of its local community as evidenced through our diverse and ever-developing partnership and outreach programmes. Since 2017, our ambitions have grown exponentially, and we are delighted that so many Emanuel pupils and local young people are benefiting from enriching experiences at our school and beyond.

Our aim is to foster aspiration and social mobility through education so that young people who are part of our programmes are able to make the best of themselves.

This publication provides a flavour of what goes on beyond the classroom and the positive differences we are making.You will see that this is very much a team effort, with parents, colleagues, governors, and pupils, at this school and others playing an active role.

Robert Milne Headmaster

OUR IMPACT IN A NUTSHELL

32 1140

Partner schools primary pupils participating in Primary Ambitions (our Friday afternoon enrichment programme)

250 11

Year 4 children participating in our football tournaments

45

young people playing disability football and hockey on site each term

2320

swimming hours over 2021-22 for 6 schools

216

GCSE booster hours for 2 partner schools

35 60

partner community organisations

children participating in Ascent (our summer Saturday school) from 10 partner schools

200

pupil hours spent each year supporting the elderly

£40.5 m

Ukrainians attending our Coffee & Conversation Hub weekly

144

5000+

children in receipt of fee assistance community service hours through the DofE programme

£19.4 m

Emanuel School’s total contribution to UK GDP each year Emanuel School’s total contribution to the GDP of Wandsworth each year

EDUCATION EQUALITY

Our work with partner schools permeates every aspect of school life. Pupils and staff are actively encouraged to volunteer – staff serve as school governors; run Drama, Art, STEM and Creative Writing workshops; facilitate Ascent, our Summer term Saturday programme and GCSE booster courses. Pupils volunteer on weekends and school holidays as leaders and teaching assistants for Emanuel and partner school programmes.

Our flagship Primary Ambitions programme unites Year 6 pupils from 18 local state schools with a high proportion of free school meals with Emanuel Lower Sixth students every Friday to explore a range of enrichment topics in the Arts, Language, Literature, Politics, Science,Technology, Maths and Sport. Each year, over 6,500 children and young adults participate in our community programmes.

Emanuel School does so much great work for our community and schools within my constituency. I would like to thank Emanuel School for the fantastic work they do for our local area and welcome their continued support for our local schools.

Greg Hands, Member of Parliament for Chelsea and Fulham

PRIMARY AMBITIONS

Primary Ambitions is our flagship Lower Sixth-led primary schoolfocused enrichment programme. Our pupils plan and prepare their sessions including presentations, activities, worksheets and games with the support of their Primary Ambitions supervisors.They then deliver their materials to groups of 15 Year 5 or 6 pupils from 18 of our local state primary partner schools.

We offer 19 different subjects including action-packed swimming lessons in the pool, Design & Technology in the DT suite and Biodiversity in our wonderful Biodiversity Garden. These are in addition to Clay Creatures Art workshops, Comedy & Masks Drama sessions, Filmmaking and Robotics.

IT HAS BEEN A JOY, AS A TEACHER, TO SEE HOW MUCH BOTH THE STUDENTS RUNNING THE WORKSHOPS, AND THE YEAR 6 PUPILS TAKING PART, HAVE ENJOYED THEMSELVES. IT HAS BEEN A REALLY VALUABLE EXPERIENCE FOR MY YEAR 6 STUDENTS, WHO HAVE BEEN UTTERLY ENGAGED AND INSPIRED BY THE PROGRAMME!

Goldfinch Primary

“

Primary Ambitions runs for 20 weeks from September to June each year. Each week 285 primary school pupils, all from schools with a high percentage of children qualifying for free school meals, attend. We provide 1425 pupil enrichment hours per five-week module; and 5700 enrichment hours across the year.

We were thrilled to win the highly competitive Independent School of the Year award for Community Outreach in 2021. The award recognised us for our creative approach to supporting our primary school partners throughout the pandemic with our Primary Ambitions’ Lesson-in-a-box programme. Our Lower Sixth pupils prepared lesson plans, presentations, group and individual activities and how-to videos then boxed them up and delivered them to our partner primary schools.

The programme’s success stems from mutual benefit – our partner school pupils are engaged in their learning, build confidence, resilience and friendships; and Emanuel pupils develop their leadership, facilitation and teamworking skills.

ASCENT

In the Summer term, we run Ascent, a Saturday booster programme for 30 of our primary school partners’ Year 5 pupils. Sessions are led by Emanuel staff supported by Emanuel volunteers.

Ascent’s initial aim was to ‘close the gap’ for pupils within our local communities who were hardest hit by the Covid-19 driven school closures. As we move beyond Covid, our intent is to support Year 5 children from disadvantaged backgrounds who are failing to meet national standards in the core subjects of Literacy and Maths. We provide booster curriculum-linked sessions in these core subjects supplemented by interactive, fun hands-on science sessions and co-curricular lessons (Drama, Art and Sport). Our aim is to help participating children to solidify their basic knowledge and skills, build their confidence and empower them to exceed national standards.

Last year, four pupils from our Year 5 cohort successfully applied to join the Ascent Programme, a scheme supporting pupils not just in English, Maths and Science, but also in PE and Arts. All of the participants benefitted academically from the Ascent Programme, as demonstrated in their ongoing achievements and progress now in Year 6. We have also seen these pupils develop their general confidence and they now have a stronger ability to share their ideas effectively in class.

Donal Daly Headmaster of Westbridge Primary

YEAR 6 ENRICHMENT

Our partnership with Christ Church CE and John Burns primaries continues to thrive and we regularly run enrichment sessions for pupils from their Year 6 along with both of our Year 6 classes.

Children engage in a variety of activities where they work together in multi-school small groups. Children have recently engaged in a ‘Film in a Day’ project where the aim was to story board, script, costume design, act and film superheroes demonstrating acts of kindness in our community. In other sessions, they developed their drama skills and then prepared, again including helping create the script, a play in a day which they performed to their parents at the end of the session. Workshops have featured screen printing, science experiments, creative writing and much more.

The enrichment activities with our partner primary schools are a wonderful way for our local schools’ community to work together and make new friendships. The programme is an invaluable part of our community programme for our Year 6 pupils.

John Burns Primary pupil

THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!

Ahmed

“

PARTNER SCHOOL SPORTS

We host termly 7-a-side football tournaments for Year 4 pupils from our partner schools. Fulham FC Foundation, one of our community partners, joins us to run the tournaments providing referees and organisers, the goals, the balls, the cones and multiple prizes. Referees give out wrist bands as spot prizes for teamwork and sportsmanship too. Typically, eight teams participate in trophy and plate competitions. Our aim is for children to have a positive experience and to have the opportunity – which they rarely have – to represent their schools.

Football tournaments are a regular feature within our community partnership calendar.  In addition, we provide over 2000 pupilhours of swimming over the year for multiple primary and secondary schools and offer Rowing and Rugby workshops for Westminster City School, one of our fellow Foundation schools.

I LEARNED THAT IT IS IMPORTANT TO TRY YOUR BEST AND TO PLAY AS A TEAM.

“

GCSE BOOSTERS

The GCSE booster programme includes up to 50 Westminster City School and St John Bosco College pupils over the October and Easter holidays. Topics include English, Maths and the three sciences, Biology, Chemistry and Physics. We run concurrent sessions catering for pupils in need of stretch and challenge and those in need of additional support.

Sessions are run by Emanuel School staff. The sessions are high impact – the pupils are enthusiastic about our teaching approach and the opportunity to consolidate their learning. 70% of last year’s cohort achieved their predicted grades or higher in English and Maths. We are currently exploring collaborating with other independent secondaries to enable us to reach more pupils in need of support.

We connect with our secondary school partners in a variety of ways ranging from invitations to careers’ fairs, A-level art workshops, ‘Film-in-a-Week’ workshops, GCSE Drama support, sharing teaching know-how and more in addition to the GCSE booster programme.

IN DEPTH EXPLANATIONS AND LEARNING MORE EFFICIENT PROBLEM SOLVING TECHNIQUES WERE INCREDIBLY HELPFUL.

Westminster City School pupil

WANDSWORTH STATE AND INDEPENDENT SCHOOL CONSORTIUM

Recognising the benefits of state and independent school partnerships, Wandsworth Council’s Children’s Services Head of Participation and Performance, Andy Hough, reached out to independent schools active in the partnership space with the view of establishing a borough-wide partnership programme. The aims of the initiative are to:

• Share good practice and improve teaching and learning across both sectors.

• Provide opportunities for pupils across both sectors to work together collaboratively.

• Target disadvantaged pupils to support their creative and academic development.

• Raise the aspirations of disadvantaged pupils.

Emanuel School is a founding partner, coordinating Battersea schools as well as working with key schools in Tooting and Roehampton.

A borough-wide art project, ‘Place to Call Home’ was the first collaboration including 13 independent and over 50 state schools and pupils across the borough. We hosted professional development sessions for partner school art subject leads and supported marketing and development efforts. The project culminated in an art installation, facilitated by local artist, Alexander Mourant, at Southside shopping centre.

We are continuing to explore how we can share best practice, professional development and develop and execute further cross borough initiatives.

OUR EXPERIENCE WITH PRIMARY AMBITIONS HAS BEEN NOTHING SHORT OF INCREDIBLE.

FREYA

LOWER SIXTH PRIMARY AMBITIONS SCIENCE FACILITATOR

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

Emanuel students are actively involved in charitable fundraising, which exemplifies their focus on looking beyond the school’s boundaries to help the lives of others in our community and beyond.

Each year, the Charity Committee, composed of students from all year groups, shortlists charities that they would like to support. In addition to a UK-based charity, we support our partnership schools in Tamil Nadu, India and Giant Strides, Emanuel’s fundraising campaign.

Our students plan, organise, and coordinate events to raise funds for the chosen charities, whilst always looking for creative ways to fundraise. In addition to raising funds, we support local community partners through student and parent- supported collections of much-needed items such as food, clothing and books.

One of the partners that we support is the Ace of Clubs, a day centre providing support for the homeless in our local community. We hold an annual sleepout in aid of the charity to raise funds and awareness in addition to support provided throughout the year with food and clothing donations and Christmas cards.

CHARITIES WE HAVE SUPPORTED

DUKE OF EDINBURGH

Each academic year we typically have 130 students working towards their Bronze DofE Certificate, 90 towards Silver; and 20 towards Gold. In addition to completing physical and skills components and an expedition, each student volunteers in their community every week for up to 12 months.

• 5000+ hours of community service

• £23,500 social value

• 240+ pupils participating each year

Students volunteer for many local organisations including local sports clubs, local primary schools, neighbourhood associations, park services and church groups.

Activity choices are wide ranging. For example, in 2021 Cordeila (Year 10) supported FiSH Neighbourhood Care, an organisation that brings together older people living with dementia for tea and conversation. When lockdown eased sufficiently, she decided to deliver the ‘Cream teas in a Bag’ to the elderly at their homes.

Some pupils extend their support to global initiatives. For example, several students have joined the Médecins Sans Frontières initiative ‘Missing Maps’. This involves creating maps from satellite and high-altitude imaging resources to support welfare and relief charities in remote areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Others helped to train Machine Learning AI algorithms to recognise and categorise a diverse range of things including: identifying carbon dioxide vents on Mars, classifying fish in the sea near Hawaii, spotting wild animals across the world and counting penguins, chicks and eggs in Antarctica.

THE EMANUEL STUDENTS HAVE BEEN EXCEPTIONAL, VERY SUPPORTIVE OF OUR PUPILS AND EXTREMELY ENGAGING.

CLAIRE MITCHELL HEADTEACHER, ST MARY’S RC PRIMARY

SOCIAL INCLUSION

Emanuel School is committed to ensuring that equality, diversity and inclusion are at the very heart of our culture and community. We are committed to ensuring that every member of the Emanuel community – our students, staff, alumni and wider community –feels welcomed, respected, valued and supported.

ARCHER ADVISORY GROUP

The Archer Advisory Group (named in honour of John Richard Archer, former Mayor of Battersea and the first black person to hold a senior public office in London) is an important voice within Emanuel School. The group is made up of school staff – from across all employee positions – and pupils of different ages and backgrounds. Its task is to review the school’s curriculum, structures and population, through the lenses of the diverse members of the Emanuel community.

Establishing this new group was one way in which Emanuel School responded to events in the USA and around the world in 2020, following the killing of George Floyd by a member of the State Police Force.

The group seeks out pupil, parent, governor and external voices on all matters of race and inequality – recognising that there are wider issues of inequality and intersectionality that must also be identified, discussed and addressed.

The advisory group’s audit has resulted in changes within the school. Moving forward, the group will continue to devise and advise on new approaches with a specific focus on the ways in which we provide education regarding race, anti-racism and forms of inequality and representation in society.

These events have reinforced the need for us all to genuinely care for each other, stand up for others and be honestly educated in matters of race, anti-racism, inequality and human rights. George Floyd’s killing follows similar deaths of other black Americans. It was not an isolated event. It is also not only an American matter. Britain has a similar list of black Britons killed or rendered disabled through acts of atrocity.

I am sure I speak on behalf of us all by saying we must stand together, with all victims of marginalisation, injustice, repression and inequality. We condemn the specific actions leading to the death of George Floyd and the cultures surrounding them.

Robert Milne Headmaster (Newsletter and letter to the school community, 8th June 2020)

PRISM AND PRIDE

PRISM is Emanuel’s LGBTQ+ pupil voice group. Prism meet weekly to discuss topics of queer culture, including talks on political figures, book and film reviews. The society is run by pupils in the Upper Sixth who are supported by teachers, and is open to those in Year 9 and above.

The PRISM committee are also in charge of organising Emanuel’s annual Pride Week which first began in 2020. Pride Week aims to celebrate diversity and difference and help increase our understanding of the LGBTQ+ community. It is important to us that all members of the Emanuel community feel supported and accepted at school. Over the years, we have had sales of rainbow laces, a teacher lip sync battle, a colourful non-uniform day, performances of queer-themed monologues and music and a school-wide poetry competition. Life Education lessons and assemblies ask pupils to consider how they can show support and understanding to their peers.

For Pride Week, we wanted to offer a wide range of activities including educating pupils on LGBTQ+ topics, raising money and hosting fun activities. We worked with staff members to create a week-long plan of activities for a week in the Spring term, Pride Week was a great success and we achieved our goals of creating something new to support Pride, while raising money for our selected charity, Though we are supporting and championing Pride throughout the school year, the focus during Pride Week helped to reinforce this goal. Seb Year 13

WORKING WITH THE ELDERLY

Loneliness affects everyone but it is particularly prevalent amongst elderly people. Emanuel School partners with a number of local community organisations to help address this issue and ensure that the elderly in our neighbourhood feel valued in our community.

Sixth form pupils attend weekly activities at a local social club for the elderly, Regenerate Rise. They organise and support bingo, exercise classes, board games, afternoon tea and engage in some wonderful conversations.

We launched our first ‘Tech and Tea’ event at a local care home in the Spring term 2022. Our aim was to help the older generation with using their tech. Devised by our Community Partnership Prefect, Bobbie, we had a ‘menu’ where participants could order what type of ‘help’ they needed if their questions didn’t come to mind straight away. Examples included how to make the font size bigger on their devices and to upload and share photos. This was a great opportunity as our pupils were able to show them functions that they didn’t even know existed.

Tech was important, but so was the tea. As we had conversations over tea and snacks, it became apparent that the residents appreciated our help, but our company was of even greater value.

We regularly organise concerts in local care homes and with our partner, Regenerate Rise. These offer a wonderful opportunity for our musicians to perform and, importantly, to engage with our community. They are well attended and surprisingly raucous! Great fun for everyone involved.

WIDENING ACCESS FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

We work with Fulham Football Club Foundation and Wayfarers Flyerz to offer children and young people with disabilities the opportunity to play football and hockey on site weekly throughout the year to help achieve postive outcomes. The twice weekly football sessions focus on providing best in class experiences for participants with disabilities.

The goals of the programmes are not only to promote a love of sport and physical activity but also to improve the participants’ physical health and mental wellbeing and to reduce social isolation. Wayfarers Flyerz hockey programme has similar aims. The programme is supported by Emanuel staff and pupil volunteers.

We work closely with Park House School. Park House, part of the Beyond Autism Schools network, is an independent school for 4 to 11 year old children with autism. The school’s aims are to nurture confidence, independence and self-belief to enable every child to achieve the best possible outcomes. Lower Sixth pupils run weekly enrichment programmes on Friday afternoons at Park House. These include baking and decorating, games, painting and collage which are fun, hands-on and build confidence and social skills. We also provide weekly access, with a lifeguard, to our swimming pool which has proved a terrific success.

Emanuel School is doing great work in the community and providing valuable support to people in Battersea. I have been pleased to learn more about activities that it is organising such as to help refugee families feel welcome in Battersea, supporting students from disadvantaged backgrounds and holding sports clubs for disabled children.

Marsha de Cordova MP Member of Parliament for Battersea

SUPPORTING OUR COMMUNITY

In addition to school partnerships, we are immersed in our local community.

We work with local community partners to address local needs. These include Regenerate Rise, Fulham FC Foundation and Wayfarers Flyerz that we have highlighted elsewhere. We also work with the Children’s Book Project and HMP Wandsworth to distribute books to those who need them. We have collected and rehomed thousands of much needed books to those who are keen to read them in our community. We support refugees through work with West London Welcome and our own initiatives providing funds, clothing, and support. We provide Christmas hampers to local single parent families in crisis. We have highlighted several of these initiatives here.

Our Lower and Middle School pupils assemble Christmas hampers for single-parent families in our local area through our partnership with the charity CHEER, based at St Mark’s Church Battersea. Each class collects wonderful, much needed staples as well as Christmas treats and beautifully wrapped presents for each member of their assigned families. We typically collect for 72 families in our local area each year. Our Emanuel community support makes such a difference to our vulnerable neighbours.

Our Sixth form pupils fundraise and collect food and much needed items for a local homeless day centre, Ace of Clubs. We have worked closely with the charity for over 10 years. They provide transformative support for homeless, vulnerable, and otherwise marginalised people in our area. At their centre on St Alphonsus Road, they provide for the immediate needs of those in desperate circumstances with safety, food, warmth, clothing, laundry, and showers. Ace of Clubs currently helps up to 180 people per day. The funds raised and food donated are always gratefully received.

WE WERE IN TOTAL AWE WHEN WE SAW THE AMOUNT OF BAGS COMING THROUGH THE CHURCH DOOR. THE SHEER AMOUNT OF GORGEOUS AND DELICIOUS THINGS TOTALLY TOOK US BY SURPRISE. CHILDREN, PARENTS AND TEACHERS OF EMANUEL SCHOOL, THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH.

Cherie Colman, CHEER Founder/Director

“

In response to the Afghan refugee crisis, we partnered with local charity West London Welcome to support the growing network of Afghan refugees in our community. With the help of an amazing team of parent volunteers, we delivered 1000s of items of clothing for 5 to 16 year old children. West London Welcome were thrilled by our generosity.

The recent Ukrainian refugee crisis reinforced the need for us to support those fleeing war and persecution. In partnership with the White Eagle Polish Club in Balham, we were able to deliver 160 black bin bags of much needed medical, hygiene and sanitary supplies as well as thermal clothing. Emanuel parent

volunteers diligently sorted, repacked, labelled, carried, counted and transported thousands of generously donated items. Our donations were delivered to those that needed them within two days of our collection.

In addition to collecting much needed items, we have donated £15,000 to the Disasters Emergency Committee’s (DEC) Ukrainian appeal. We have also reached out to our community and provided several school places to children hosted by Emanuel families. We launched the Coffee and Conversation Hub to enable refugee families to network and practise their English in a safe, supportive environment.

We are incredibly grateful to Emanuel School’s parents, teachers and students for their amazing efforts collecting and donating huge amounts of clothes for newly-arrived Afghan refugees in West London. Our new neighbours were thrilled to be given them for themselves and their children.

SUPPORTING THE AFGHAN AND UKRAINIAN REFUGEE COMMUNITY ACCESS TO SCHOOL PLACES FOR UKRAINIAN REFUGEES

Leyla Williams, Deputy Director of West London Welcome

I really enjoy the Sciences because we have lots of equipment to do all the experiments. I am doing GCSE Art, Emanuel has the most fabulous resources. We started with usual painting with gouache and are now modelling.

We have been able to offer two fully funded places to displaced Ukrainian students since the conflict began in February 2022.

Yeva (Year 10) is one of the pupils who joined us. She shares her experience.

“I have made so many good friends here and all of the teachers are really warm and helpful. We have great opportunities in all of our subjects. I am having extra English sessions with a teacher which is incredibly helpful too.

I am having so much fun and enjoying the rowing sessions. This was my first experience on the water and I like that we have coaches with us as that helps and makes us do much better and I love the races.

I also really enjoy all the trips. We have had many so far and I have had so much fun. They have been hugely varied including paddle boarding and an Art trip to the V&A.

I feel lucky to study here.”

UKRAINIAN COFFEE AND CONVERSATION HUB

In May 2022, we launched our Coffee and Conversation Hub at Emanuel School.  Typically 60 Ukrainian adults and children meet with Emanuel parent and pupil volunteers, including Ukrainian speakers, to network and hone their English skills. The Hub runs bi-monthly on Saturday mornings and is open to everyone in our Wandsworth community.

We have organised a number of activities including a Houses of Parliament tour through a wonderful Emanuel parent volunteer; free places with Activ Camp for 5 weeks over the Summer for 20 children; and day visits to the Wetlands Centre. We recently hosted a Christmas celebration. We decorated

delicious shortbread cookies and enjoyed some spectacularly tasty traditional Ukrainian Christmas treats.  A highlight was joining the Emanuel School parent choir - our Ukrainian contingent sang a traditional Ukrainian carol a cappella and then joined our choir to sing Silent Night plus more. It was a wonderful way to share a little Christmas spirit in such difficult times.

The Hub has enabled our Ukrainian neighbours to connect, access much needed resources and information, sign up for English classes and importantly, have a safe and regular meeting point.

Hub participant

THE HUB IS BRILLIANT. IT IS OUR ONLY OPPORTUNITY TO MEET OTHER UKRAINIANS AS WELL AS TO PRACTISE ENGLISH AND LEARN MORE ABOUT BRITISH CULTURE.

ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY AT EMANUEL

Emanuel School is committed to instilling a sense of collective responsibility and ambition in our pupils, staff and wider community to achieve an environmentally sustainable future. We believe it is our duty to raise awareness of the challenges that our environment faces and are determined to take positive action to address these so that sustainability and environmental considerations are embedded into our everyday school culture.

Environment and sustainability are high on the Emanuel agenda and there are a host of initiatives across the School working to identify and implement methods to reduce our environmental footprint and work towards a sustainable future.

The Eco committee creates ways to inform our school community about wider environmental issues as well as to celebrate the successes and positive changes that are being achieved in the move towards a more sustainable planet.  Examples of initiatives include:

Wasteless Week - a popular event that encourages pupils to become part of a solution to waste reduction by asking for only what they think they can eat at lunchtime. It has resulted in a reduction of food waste by over 40% during this initiative. Gardening Club – the team are making good use of our beautiful Eco Garden where they are working hard to increase biodiversity by growing plants to encourage pollinating insects such as bees and butterflies as well as learning to be more self-sustaining through fruits and vegetables.

A group of Year 6 pupils have completed the Transport for London’ STARS accreditation scheme which inspires young Londoners to travel to school sustainably, actively, responsibly and safely by championing walking, scooting and cycling.

For all residential trips, we now ask for contributions to support two carbon offsetting schemes, protecting the Tambopata-Bahuaja Biodiversity Reserve in Peru and a wind power project in Thailand.

By demonstrating best practice that engages all stakeholders and incorporates all our activities, we can be proactive in minimising the ecological impact of our school operations and ensure that understanding and the practice of sustainability lies at the heart of everything we do at Emanuel.

Pupil Eco Manifesto, 2022

COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY TEAM

Mr R Milne Headmaster

Ms K Donn Teaching Co-ordinator Partnerships

Mr J Barber Head of Primary Ambitions

Mr RD Chuter DofE Co-ordinator

Mr D Hand Sixth Form Charity Liaison

Mrs H Hawkridge Environmental Lead

Mr S Andrews Chair ofThe Archer Advisory Group

Mr M Shetzer Charities Co-ordinator

Mr S Turner Deputy Head: Co-curricular, Partnerships and Admissions

Mrs L Irwin Head of Community Partnerships & Outreach