COMMUNITY SUPPORTING READING SCHOOL
The Society Office Redingensians Community Making a Difference Thank you from the Headmaster and the Society Office We would like to take this opportunity to extend our wholehearted thank you, for your contributions to the school life at Reading School. Sometimes it is felt that we do not say these two simple words, ‘thank you’ often enough and we want you to know, that every donation, whether this is money or time, is genuinely appreciated. We are striving to be better, as we put in place processes to recognise every contribution, thank you for bearing with us. Each one of you are a valued member of the Redingensians community. This year we have been extremely humbled to see the spirit of philanthropy and togetherness throughout the Redingensians community and during very trying times. As lock down was enforced Reading School flew into action by working in partnership with the Royal Berkshire Hospital to fight Covid-19. We saw the construction of mobile containers taking place at the end of March on the Reading School Field and the Redingensians community came together to support an array of initiatives either through donations, volunteering time or students taking personal challenges to raise funds. The whole school community has been honoured to be able to support the NHS, keyworkers, vulnerable families and the wider community through our #RSCares initiative launching projects to support those most vulnerable during the pandemic, the following has taken place over the last few months.
Future Stories Support Fund - #RSCares Reading School launched the Future Stories Support Fund extended to support families connected to Reading School during the Covid-19 Crisis to include: •
supporting children and families of key workers and vulnerable families
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families who are in self-isolation
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families who are struggling financially
•
families of NHS staff and NHS staff based at the RBH – including nurses, cleaners, and porters at RBH making the country proud and deserve everything we can give them.
We set a target of £10,000 and exceeded this, reaching £15,000 because of your kind generosity. Reading School’s leadership team and Society Office were increasingly aware of difficulties families may be facing both financially and emotionally during this time. Support has been offered to those families self-isolating, caring for family or struggling to afford their weekly shop led by Mr T Evans (Assistant Head). We have delivered weekly mentoring sessions for around thirty Year 5 students led by three staff with a team of Sixth Formers running up to seven separate sessions to different groups of boys; Maths mentoring throughout lockdown, led by a group of three staff and Year 12 students to support vulnerable students in Year 6; as well as providing laptop devices to students from these cohorts that lacked access to the internet. Support has been offered to those suffering emotional difficulties either by connecting them to professionals during this period as well as specialist guidance from Ms S Drummond who led on this. 44
Floreat Redingensis
SEPTEMBER 2020
