Harrismith Secondary Update

Head of History and Oxbridge co-ordinator Mrs Helen Skilton recently announced some very exciting updates related to our partnership with Harrismith Secondary in South Africa.

• The Winter Social arranged by Fifth year pupils Enya Bowe and  Ellie Herniman raised a superb £557.
• The next fundraising event is the 'Rainbow Cinderella' 'concert on Friday 17th February. Please support us with your attendance, but if you want to take part and are not signed up yet, come to the rehearsal on Monday 12th December in the Theatre.

This year all the money raised will be used for the following:

• Continuing to support Harrismith in upgrading its ICT room. Systems manager Mr Ade Statham will be spending the two weeks of our visit upgrading, maintaining and repairing the computers, as well as providing training for staff and pupils. The aim on our 2017 visit is to organise an ongoing maintenance contract which we can continue to fund in the long term.
• Paying for uniform for pupils that cannot afford their own. We will devote money raised by a non-uniform day at Easter to this aspect.
• The material to make the costumes for the annual Harrismith drama production led by Bablake's former Head of English Mr Ian Appleby.
• Paying for excursions for the Harrismith pupils that take part in the activities in the exchange programme in the summer. Harrismith pupils work hard to be selected for this programme and, without our funding, they would not be able to join in.
• Setting up a fund to help Harrismith pupils make university applications, as some of them cannot afford to pay the fee for the application.

The 13 Bablake pupils who are visiting Harrismith in 2017 pay their own expenses. Some of them do fundraise out of school to assist with paying for their trip, but all the money raised within Bablake goes directly to Harrismith, which is incredibly grateful for the support.