Community Links and Public Benefit
Where planning consents allow, the School lets out its facilities, especially the Sports Hall and Jubilee Theatre, at very reasonable rates to other members of the local community.
The School has sporting links with local football, netball, badminton and cricket clubs. The Jubilee Theatre has been let out at different times to local dance and music organisations, flower clubs, nursery schools, theatre groups and charities.
In addition to the above, Penshurst Choral Society and Tunbridge Wells Symphony Orchestra rehearse in the theatre every Tuesday and Friday respectively, and NADFAS (the National Association of Decorative & Fine Art Societies) have a lecture the last Thursday of each month.
Community Art Project. For the last five years or so the School has supported a Community Art Project in which four representatives from each of five local primary schools and four from Year 6 at Holmewood, participate together in an art project on Wednesday afternoons in the Autumn and Spring terms. This is led by our art teachers and is funded to the tune of £5,000, excluding the Head of Art’s time (about £4k). The project culminates in an exhibition attended by parents, headteachers from the Primary Schools and the local community
Charitable Fund-Raising The School’s own fund-raising activity focuses mainly on children’s charities (and sometimes others). Examples include: Jeans for Genes Day for Great Ormond Street Hospital, Red Nose Day, The Bearswood Christmas shoe box appeal for children in Eastern Europe and Africa, The Soup Kitchen in Tonbridge Wells run by St. Augustine’s Church, British Heart Foundation, Riding for the Disabled, Barnardo’s. In most cases representatives from charities come and address the children.
The School also supports two overseas projects:
The Haller Foundation. The Pre-Prep has supported The Haller Foundation, an educational charity working mainly in Africa, for several years, in a specific project providing education and medical care in Kenya. A number of fund-raising events have taken place and presentations have been made to the children.
Link Community Development. The Prep School supports the LINK Community Development charity, which, in turn, supports schools in certain African countries and involves setting up curriculum and other links between schools. Holmewood is linked with Kokobiriko Primary School in the Kumasi-Asante-Bosomtwe region of Ghana. Kokobiriko is a model link that is used in all case studies for other link Schools in Ghana. We have raised over £30,000 for the School and have built a library and teacher's residence which makes life easier for teachers who live far from the School. The headmaster and deputy head of Kokobiriko Primary School, together with five pupils, have visited Holmewood at our expense, and representatives from Holmewood have visited Kokobiriko on three occasions . Curriculum links have also been established and there is a regular mailing between pupils in both schools. This link is served to bring home to our children the poverty that exists in Africa and the difference that money can make to improving education for at least a few fortunate children.
The Friends of Holmewood. The Friends of Holmewood is a committee of parents who organise mainly social fund-raising events, the proceeds of which are often shared between projects for the school and other local charities.
The Friends have been strong supporters in recent years of Demelza House, a hospice for terminally ill children and have donated similar amounts each year to this and other local charities.
The Second-hand Uniform Shop. The proceeds of the School’s second-hand uniform shop are all donated to charity. The shop operates to sell second-hand uniform in good condition. It is run by parents on a voluntary basis and the profits are donated annually to two children’s charities, one overseas and one locally. Recent donations have been made to the Haller Foundation, The Sunrise Centre, Kokobiriko, KIDS, Facing Africa, and the NSPCC.
For further details please see our Public Benefit Policy Document - click here to download.