We were delighted to be chosen as the Community and Collaborative School of the Year 2016 at the recent TES School Awards.
It was an honour to be able to promote the hard work of Broadford pupils, staff and Harold Hill groups and families. All of them have contributed significantly to our school's development over the last five years.
Our vision specifically refers to the importance of the school championing the local community and ensuring that Harold Hill engages far afield as well. We have relentlessly tried to give our pupils and families a wide range of opportunities to broaden their horizons, to make them realise their potential and be inspired to achieve great things.
Thank you for all the kind comments, support and encouragement. It was recognition for us all.
The original bid is below and shows the incredible achievements we have had this year. Well done Team Broadford!
Our partnership last year with the Mayor of London and Free the Children is deserving of this award for the way it has had a direct and positive impact on our local community and inspired a new generation of social activists.
We set up Team Broadford to encourage all pupils to give up their time to make our community a better place. The aims were to inspire the next generation of volunteers, connecting pupils with our community and give pupils the skills and experiences they need for future success.
Through this volunteering programme the pupils have independently developed a range community projects on social issues they are passionate about.
The pupils organised a Youth Summit which brought children together to create social change and to build leadership. During the summit, pupils had the opportunity to explore the issues, build a plan of action and realize their potential to make a difference:
Litter picking to create a better environment,
Food collections and food sorting at the community foodbank to address food poverty,
Collecting donations from local businesses and creating care packages to support people facing housing problems and domestic violence,
Visiting pensioner clubs and care homes to spend time with vulnerable elderly people.
The Youth Summit inspired 90 pupils from 8 schools to volunteer for 2160 hours over 8 weeks. Together, they collected over half tonne of ambient food, made 500 care packages and visited over 270 elderly members of the community. Observing these students working collaboratively proves the African proverb ‘If you want to go far, go together.’
In addition to this, Team Broadford Volunteers created and pitched a campaign idea to a panel resulting in them being awarded a Unilever bright futures grant. The pupils described how they believe that everyone deserves a little kindness in their life. This project aimed to kickstart a kindness revolution and launched a ‘year of kindness’ with their campaign #wearekind.
The grant has enabled us to buy coats for people who are cold, flowers for people who are sad and snacks for people who are hungry within our community. Team Broadford volunteers live the ethos of Morgan Freeman, ‘How do we change the world? One random act of kindness at a time.’ Throughout our year of kindness we measured the impact on attitudes, behaviour and academic success of all stakeholders.
Within the school, those who sign up to become Team Broadford volunteers (76% of pupils have taken part) can exchange their hours of volunteering for bronze, silver and gold certificates and rewards. These achievements are recognised with the chance to attend We Day, a global celebration of young people making a difference in their communities. The work of Team Broadford volunteers have been celebrated at We Day and two students from the school have spoken about their community engagement at Wembley Arena in front of 12,000 spectators and many more online followers.
100% of Team Broadford volunteers agree that they;
· Have a greater enthusiasm for learning,
· Have demonstrated increased leadership among their peers,
· Are more optimistic about their long term future,
We believe that the way in which this collaboration has impacted on our community is worthy of the Collaboration & Community Award.
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