FUNDRAISINGNEWS 2017
Prospective parents often ask me how we, as a school, go about supporting charitable causes. I suppose the underlying question being posed is whether Arnold House boys (and their parents) live a privileged way of life without much of a care for people less fortunate than themselves. I am proud to be able to answer truthfully; that members of the Arnold House community stand out as beacons for recognising that the advantages we enjoy are available sadly to too few and that we all share in the responsibility to try to make the world a better place for others. I know this to be the case because so many AH parents have set up their own
charities; projects that have taken many years to build-up into successful and sustainable enterprises. Parents have also proven to be generous supporters of the School’s charitable giving programme which has considerable input from the boys themselves. The boys choose our nominated international charity each year and find novel ways of raising money through events such as the Bursary Challenge Week and Young Entrepreneurs’ Afternoon. The Bursary Fund is another case in point having been supported to the tune of nearly £700,000 since its launch in 2011. For a prep school of our size this is a remarkable figure to have raised and
gives us hope that we may be on course to reach the magical target of £1,000,000 by 2021. All in all, I think as a school we can feel proud of our fundraising and charitable giving efforts, whilst being confident that AH boys develop a perceptive sense of their place in the world as well as a keen awareness of how they should try to make a difference for the benefit of others. Viv Thomas Headmaster
THE VALUE OF A BURSARY PLACE AT ARNOLD HOUSE What better way to measure the value and success of a bursary place at Arnold House than through the pupils themselves? To date our bursary boys have been successful in gaining places to the most sought after senior schools. They go on to thrive in their teenage years and thus far have moved on to Russell Group universities: Brunel, Newcastle and Oxford. We are grateful to two of our past bursary boys who have put into words their experience, the differences from their previous schools and how they were able to settle into life at Arnold House.
Joining Arnold House in Year 5 From the beginning, I knew that I was very fortunate to be able to attend Arnold House and I wanted to do my best. I remember, I settled in to Year 5 quickly and was invited to meet some of the new friends I had made outside of school. I had attended a ‘taster day’ so knew what to expect, but it was very different from my previous school. Classes had half as many pupils as I had been used to and for the first time I was amongst pupils all of whom were
of a similar ability. I appreciated having specialist teachers for different subjects which I would not have had otherwise. I found everything interesting and I worked hard. By attending Arnold House I was able to begin Latin and French in Year 5 and these are now amongst my best subjects. As a result, I successfully took GCSEs in these a year early and I have chosen to study three other languages. I had been used to a small playground where the boys’ ball games needed to be restricted.