Westbourne School provides an all
round education which extends far beyond the classroom. This
means that the School is, and always has been, inextricably linked
with the local community. It is part of our ethos that pupils
should be engaged with the real world and that when they leave the
school they will make a positive contribution to society.
Whilst our pupils learn from their interactions with the outside
world, the School, in turn, engages with and benefits the local,
national and international community in many ways.
Junior School gets out and about!
Westbourne students and families enjoy being involved! In fact
it would be impossible to prepare young people for the challenges
and realities of the world they live in without being engaged in
life beyond the school campus.
Westbourne has long had effective and rewarding links with
communities at local, national and international levels and we like
to keep on developing and broadening our links
In Broomhill, our neighbourhood, the school joins in the annual
summer Broomhill Festival alongside other local schools, performing
in the evening concerts in St Mark's Church. The church is also
host to our Junior School Christmas carol service and our Junior
School classes link up with the church staff and the building in
their RE topic work. Harvest time presents an opportunity for us to
bring something to school or to church to share with those who live
close by and we enjoy receiving letters and hearing stories from
where our produce has been made use.
Westbourne's annual Christmas Fayre is always a fun family day
on a Saturday in November. The stalls, activities and competitions
created by the Junior pupils raise funds for a local and national
charity of their choice while the parent led fundraising
contributes towards something extra special for the pupils
themselves - recently an outdoor activity climbing course in the
garden and an outdoor xylophone for our singing spot in the
playground.
Christmas time sees our Year 3 and 4 classes taking songs from
their Christmas shows into two local elderly people's homes, which
is a source of delight for the residents who enthuse our
imaginations with their reminiscences about their own school
days.
On a wider community scale our Junior choir and their families
join with other schools around Ranmoor to rehearse and perform in
concert to support the Homestart organisation. Currently the
Outreach Choral Support from the Sheffield Cathedral also links us
with other schools to perform together both at the Cathedral and
also with the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus.
Joining with many schools nationwide, the whole school supports
the Children in Need event each year by selling badges, cakes and
paying a forfeit for wearing anything but school uniform. This is
one of the many occasions when our Senior School students play host
to the Juniors who enjoy having a go on the entrepreneurial
activities prepared to extract money from them!
Junior School parents and friends support our links with
Macmillan Cancer Care when we join in the World's Biggest
Coffee Morning event. Many of our older girls and staff also run in
the annual local Macmillan "Race for Life" in June.
Pupils, staff and families at Westbourne join forces
to regularly raise money for communities in faraway places.
The Junior School sponsors two children on other
continents with funds from our monthly cake
sales. This brings independence to their villages by providing
training, education and health care. We know that our involvement
works because when one of our sponsors has reached a level where no
further support is needed, then World Vision introduces us to
another girl or boy who we can get to know.
The Community comes to see us !
The Broomhill Business Breakfast is held in the
french cafe in Senior School, in April and September. Local
businesses come together over breakfast (0800-1000) to this popular
networking session.
By their second term at Westbourne our Reception Class have
really grown in confidence. They invite their "old"
nursery teachers to come and visit them. Our four and five year old
spokespersons make their visitors welcome and proudly show their
work, catch up on news and show them around.
We love to take advantage of touring local and national theatre
groups and visit the theatres or invite companies into school
whenever we can. An Egyptian Pharaoh visits our Year 3 class each
year to take them into history through character parts and
experiences for a whole day. Having a poet in residence is another
special occasion when we look at what can happen with our
creative skills beyond the classrooms.
A number of our boys and girls train with sporting experts at
local and regional level and a local football team joins us for a
programme of training in the Summer term.
Almost each week a visitor from our local community comes to
talk to us in assembly to help us think about issues around us that
might affect ourselves or our families. PC Price is known to us all
and we hear from her and her colleagues throughout the year about
how to keep safe and be wise on the streets. Environment experts,
neuro scientists, dentists, doctors, the RSPB, town mayors,
climbers and explorers, forestry rangers, the fire service, local
radio and television presenters as well as clergy from a range of
local churches are all made very welcome in the life of the school
and we are glad of the contribution they make to our children's
development as young citizens.
To raise money for Comic Relief the Junior School children wore
red to school and the Senior School had a non-uniform day. The
teachers each brought in a baby photograph and ran a 'who's who'
competition for the children.