guest columist bath rhs March issue .qxp_Layout 1 21/02/2018 14:51 Page 1
GUEST | COLUMIST
REACHING OUT TO GIRLS
The director of marketing and outreach at Bath’s Royal High School, Zoe Sheffield explains the outreach activities undertaken by the school, providing education opportunities to benefit girls from schools within the wider community
T
he Royal High School is rooted in the history of the city and has a long pedigree. Today’s school was formed after a merger between two of Bath’s finest girls’ schools – the Royal School and the Bath High School for Girls, the latter having been a direct grant grammar school for many years. The Royal High School is also part of a wider network of UK girls’ schools called the Girls’ Day School Trust (GDST) and our ethos closely reflects that of the GDST, which is a not-for-profit charity educating 19,000 girls in the UK today. Our outreach work at the Royal High is directly related to our place in this unique city and to our place in the GDST network. We consider ourselves not just to be accountable to the many thousands of girls who have been, are and will be educated here but also to the wider community. My role is centred around bringing the outside in, providing free educational opportunities to other girls in the city and beyond, and going out to schools and organisations in and around Bath to offer specialist programmes as well as to simply help out. Our extensive school outreach programme reaches out in a number of different ways. We invite schoolgirls in to take part in a vast array of activities including academic workshops and sports masterclasses. We also invite the community in for talks and lectures and our pupils go out into the community as representatives of the school. For example, girls volunteer at the B&NES Dance Umbrella, Stratton House Care Home, Oakfield Care Home, Woodside Family Centre and local charity shops. Training in sports such as netball and hockey is offered to any primary schools within the local area that respond to the invitation. Similarly, we offer hugely popular sessions in dance and languages to local primary schools. Crucially, all our outreach opportunities are free so they are accessible to everyone. We 78 TheBATHMagazine
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March 2018
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issue 186
have found that schools from across the region are keen to take part. A recent art outreach saw 34 schools represented from across Bath, Bristol, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, and girls travel from as far as Salisbury to attend our workshops which are always fully booked. If you have daughters at local primary schools, you might have heard of our Saturday morning programme for girls in Years 4–6. This helps children prepare for senior school by providing curriculum extending opportunities and access to our specialist staff and outstanding facilities. The Saturday morning programme includes technology (food tech, design tech and coding), art school (working creatively in studios), creative dance (this year our theme is the books of David Walliams), Harry Potter themed classics and ancient Greek, languages (new this year), and science detectives (mystery solving). Finally, a summer festival brings music, dance and drama workshops – this feeds into our whole school festival and sees outreach girls perform on our stage. One of our aims is to give primary pupils the opportunity to make new friends and to integrate with different girls of the same age ahead of what can be a difficult and intimidating transition for many into Year 7.
We are also extending our outreach programme this year to younger year groups and holding events at our junior school in Weston. The first junior school Saturday workshop – called Digital Daughters – is already full. In addition we offer Gifted and Talented days in academics and sport. We are often lucky enough to have the help of leading academic experts and sportswomen. Academically, B&NES, Bristol and Wiltshire primaries can nominate two Year 5 girls to attend a day of workshops designed to inspire them academically and provide an opportunity to learn something beyond their school curriculum. We always welcome new approaches from schools asking us to collaborate. Recently, we were delighted to be asked by Batheaston Primary School to help improve their SATs results by delivering a programme of three days – one each term – of maths and PE activities designed to raise achievement. If you are an interested parent, teacher, student or school I would be delighted to hear from you. I love an idea or new project! n The Royal High School Bath tel: 01225 313877 web: royalhighbath.gdst.net