This year, St Edward’s has launched Teddies Collaborates; a new programme in which all Lower Sixth pupils are involved, working in partnerships outside the School for 90 minutes every week.

Courtney O’Keefe, Partnerships Coordinator, writes:

The new Lower Sixth programme, Teddies Collaborates, has had a great start. The six-week training programme is well underway and this week we welcomed Ben Jowitt from CAF Bank (Charities Aid Foundation Bank) who spoke to Lower Sixth pupils about what defines a charity, sector trends, issues charities face, and the importance of volunteers. Did you know the in the UK, the monetary value of volunteers is estimated to be £23.9 billion per year? With all 180 pupils in the Lower Sixth taking up placements in the community after half term, they will be contributing to this number.

The six-week training programme in this half of the term aims to equip pupils with the skills to help them thrive in their placements, and over the next few weeks we have more outside trainers coming in from Oxfordshire Youth to talk about Culture Shock and AGL Communication.

Pupils will shortly be selecting where they would like their placement to be. We have linked up some fantastic organisations for them to work with such as: Care Homes, the Museum of Oxford, local charities such as The Gatehouse and Seesaw, Community Centres, Primary Schools and Oxfam Superstore to name a few. They will be getting involved in a huge range of activities, from running specialist clubs and one-to-one work in Primary Schools, to setting up a ‘Warm Hub’ in the local Community Centre and helping charities with marketing and social media.

We look forward to working with all these wonderful organisations.