Thrive Morning - Giving back to the community

Our students travel to local churches offering services which include cleaning, gardening, administrative, Christmas decoration making, baking, food preparation etc.

Aims

The aim is to help the local churches who volunteer their services readily to the community. Pupils of Woldingham school offer time to these churches to help in some small way give back to the community. It is important that the churches feel valued, and that the pupils recognise the good cause they do, and the help they can offer in which will make a difference to the community. Success will very much depend on weather (for gardening), equipment available, time available and what is needed to be actioned from the churches. It is hoped that the benefit will be to the wider community who use and attend the churches, whether it be parking, sitting in the church, use of hymn books/sheets that have been arranged alphabetically etc.

Background

Through contacting many local churches the link has been in place now for several years. Heads of Year have built this relationship with the churches, expanding the list every year. We have been running the Thrive morning now for apx 4 years.

Resources

Buses to take pupils and staff to the venue, equipment to clean and garden with are essential to the success of the project. We also need the correct ratio of staff to monitor and supervise the girls throughout the morning. The school travels to these venues (local churches) so does not use any school facilities. The only financial contribution is voluntary, which this year was towards the refurbishment of part of a church. Each girl brought in £1 and 'bought' a lego brick with the fundraising going towards the church.

Impact

The project is primarily assessed by qualitative measures. How well a particular area has been gardened, how clean the carpets are, how organised the hymn sheets are etc. These assessments are carried out at the end of the morning, with a comparison to before and after.

Pupil Involvement

102 girls from Woldingham School aged 10 years old were involved.

 

Approximately 20 people between the ages of 45-80 years were involved from the churches.

Frequency

This is an annual event lasting 4 hours on each occasion.