NATIONAL RECOGNITION FOR COMMUNITY OUTREACH

We are thrilled to have won the Independent Schools of the Year 2021 award for the Community Outreach category.

Competition was intense, with a record number of entries across all categories. Independent Schools of the Year is an awards scheme run by the Independent School Parent portfolio of magazines to celebrate the success stories of schools and their pupils across the independent education sector in the UK and British schools overseas.

The award recognises our creative approach to supporting our primary school partners throughout the pandemic with our Primary Ambitions programme. Primary Ambitions unites Year 6 pupils from 18 local state schools with a high proportion of free school meals with Emanuel Lower Sixth students every Friday from 2.00pm to 3.00pm. Our Lower Sixth students teach a variety of subjects to groups of 15 Year 6 pupils on our school site. The modules taught cover subjects in the arts, languages, literature, politics, science, technology, maths and sport with 19 different options for primary schools to choose from. The emphasis is on our pupils running each session, enabling them to develop leadership, coaching and mentoring skills as well as further develop confidence, empathy, kindness and respect for those from different backgrounds.

The challenges posed by Covid-19 meant our partners needed our support more than ever.

As partner schools were unable to come on site, our pupils embraced the challenge and developed Primary Ambitions ‘Lessons-in-a-box’ to deliver to our partner schools. They prepared lesson plans, presentations, group and individual activities, how-to videos, and materials. Given the complexities of primary school teaching over the pandemic, providing opportunities for enrichment was invaluable.

Headmaster, Mr Milne, commented:

“How great to end the first half term of our year by winning a national award for our outreach and partnership programme.

Whilst the award focused on Primary Ambitions course, it also represents a positive understanding of our wider community partnerships.

These relationships in Wandsworth and beyond are part of Emanuel’s accessibility drive. This year we expect to have 1140 partner school pupils participating in our flagship outreach initiatives, meaning 1425 pupil hours per 5-week module in the Primary Ambitions course alone, and over 6000 pupil enrichment hours across the programme.

Lower down the school, our youngest pupils have a long running partnership with Christ Church CE Primary School and those in Year 7 and 8 follow timetabled courses in philosophy, social and ethical debate (ETHOS), as well as use teamwork to solve national and global challenges through the social entrepreneurship lessons.

Middle School pupils will be involved in the second series of the Ascent Programme from the coming summer. This is a Saturday morning ‘academic booster’ scheme taught by Emanuel staff and supported by pupil volunteers from Years 9 and10 with boys and girls in Year 5 from local partner schools.

Our belief is that by the time Emanuel pupils leave us they will have a true sense of the world beyond their school, be altruistic in outlook and have the confidence and desire to change the world for the better. We also intend that these programmes will help the local community to thrive and sustain our commitment to make Emanuel as accessible as possible.”