On the Friday before half-term, as part of their Newton Diploma coursework and in aid of homeless charity Centrepoint, our resilient Year 7 children braved the cold and dark to sleep rough for one night, successfully completing their sponsored sleep-out. Using only cardboard boxes and sleeping bags for shelter, they made camp and stuck it out despite the cold and uncomfortable conditions.
Mr Lang and Mr Archer have kindly put together the clip below as a record of their achievement and reminder of this memorable event.
All of the Year 7 children deserve a great deal pf praise – they were a real credit to the school and conducted themselves perfectly on what was quite a sombre and sobering experience. All of the staff involved were struck by just how much of an impact the event had on the children. They really got it! They conducted themselves perfectly, not a whine in sight, and in an appropriate, sensible and sombre way. We were very proud.
As you know, this was the culmination of over 4 weeks' work, organising and planning the event in addition to a hugely impressive fundraising campaign led by the children themselves. They worked tirelessly to raise the profile of the sleep-out as much as possible, through leaflet drops, poster campaigns and some impressive use of social media. In fact, as a result of personal videos, shout-outs or tweets from celebrities including Bear Grylls, Davina McCall, Professor Green, Calum Best, Lee Mears, Daisy McAndrew of Talk-Radio and Dr Ranj from Strictly Come Dancing, our Twitter campaign went viral to over 14 million people.
Messages of support and donations poured in throughout the night, ensuring that they met and then surpassed their ambitious target of £10,000! The current total in fact stands at a whopping £12,743! Our friends at Centrepoint were blown away, commenting, "WOW! What an incredible achievement: a record achievement raised by any School Sleep-out, nearly doubling the previous amount raised by any school."
But it is not too late to donate, so please do use this link in recognition of all their hard work and see if you can tip that total towards the big twenty number! www.justgiving.com/fundraising/newtonprepsleepout
Needless to say, we are all extremely proud of our Year 7 children for all their hard work and determination throughout this project. What a fine example of the 7 Cs of the Newton Diploma in action: Curiosity, Confidence, Communication, Collaboration, Critical-thinking, Creativity and Commitment. All of these key qualities were abundantly evident in the way that they both tackled and completed this community-minded project.
Special thanks also go to Mr Lang, Ms Aspeling, Miss Verma, Miss Hales, Mrs Frieze and Mr Wilson for surviving the night and supporting the event along with Mr Quilter.
