Volunteering
No limits... Just possibilities
The Garden House Project
We have a programme for a group of students who will volunteer to work together at The Garden House Project which is an 18-acre estate, set in the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The owners are developing a sustainable land use project with a focus on wildlife, education, therapeutic and community benefit.
The students will work together maintaining and developing this area whilst learning new skills in this beautiful environment. This work is overseen by Andrew, the project manager. Examples of the activities the students do have been tree planting, mulching, bark path laying, weeding, tidying the lakeside, ditch digging, bridge building, weeding, willow pruning, apple picking, developing hibernaculum’s and creating dry hedges for mini beasts. This is very productive physical work and the students are proud of what they achieve as a team. Students take a hot drink and snack with them each Wednesday.
Students will continue to volunteer here, weather permitting throughout the year. This will help the students achieve the volunteering section of their Duke of Edinburgh awards and complete community OCR Units.
Sayers Croft
In the Autumn and Spring Terms some of our female students volunteer fortnightly at Sayer’s Croft. We do this alongside Tormead Sixth Form girls who are working towards their Duke of Edinburgh Awards. The aim of these sessions is not only to recognise that we can volunteer and make a difference to an environment but also to have time with students from another school and develop friendships and share common interests.
Over the weeks it is wonderful to see relationships flourish and trust deepen. The girls all work together in pairs, on the tasks in hand. It’s a great opportunity to be outside in the fresh air doing some physical work.
They undertake a range of tasks such as pruning undergrowth and bushes, raking up leaves, taming the brambles, re laying bark paths and generally helping to keep the site tidy.
As a reward they sometimes have time together on some of the activities based on site. These have included braving the zip wire, tunnelling, bouldering and enjoying drumming workshops.