Community and Partnerships
Bursary provision, partnership work, and supporting the community are key strands in the School’s mission statement: Learn, Lead, and Make a Difference.
The principals date back to our founders’ charitable intentions for the School and we aim to engage all the young people we teach with the important concepts of service and giving.
2022 clearly demonstrated the extent to which the School’s mission is embedded in the Freemen’s community; when students, staff, parents and alumni, participated in partnership activities in order to make a difference. Here are three examples from 2022:
Developing leadership through partnership
Eight state and independent schools took part in a new programme set up by Freemen’s, aimed at middle and aspiring leaders. A middle leader from each school reviewed a tricky topic at another school, undertook further research and presented their findings to the host school. Topics included ‘Supporting high-achieving pupils’, ‘Development of outdoor learning’ and ‘Effective use of technology to enhance learning’.
Model United Nations Conference
Forty-five students from three local state schools joined together with students from Freemen’s to debate a wide range of topics. More than 20 Freemen’s students from Year 9 (Upper 4) to Year 12 (Lower 6) chaired and co-chaired the committees, including teaching younger pupils how to participate in a conference.
Love Languages competition
Over 110 students from 12 schools took part in Freemen’s 11th Love Languages competition. Performers sang, danced and recited poetry in one or more modern foreign languages, based around the theme ‘Nature and the environment’.
2023 promises to be another exciting year for partnership work at Freemen’s School.
In January, we launched a new partnership with two schools in Lancashire, who are part of Star Academies Trust. All Freemen’s careers talks are now being made available to partner schools (including all City Schools and the two Star Academy Schools). A selected group of students from the two schools will also benefit from bespoke mentoring support, visits to Freemen’s and the opportunity to apply for a full boarding bursary for Years 12 and 13.
January also saw the launch of our Refugee Buddy Club. A collaboration with Epsom and Ewell Refugee Network involving a group of 24 students from Freemen’s and local refugee families from Ukraine, Afghanistan and Syria.
The following report provides a sample of the community and partnerships projects undertaken during 2022.
For more information on Community and Partnerships work at Freemen’s please email Catherine Bennett, catherine.bennett@freemens.org or call 01372 822458.