Chronicle Spring 2022

30 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

Community Partnerships at St Edward’s By Rachel Moffatt, Partnerships Manager

Seb Wilcox, Oliver Bilgutay, Ruby Norburn and Venetia Hamilton helping out at the Cutteslowe Community Garden

We are delighted that pupils are finally able to get back into the community to give their time volunteering for local charities. We have made new connections with charities and embarked on new school initiatives, hoping to make a real difference to the wider community.

From an educational perspective St Edward’s is supporting a number of local primary schools through a variety of projects such as providing one-to-one help in the classroom, playtime fun and sports coaching. We continue to work with our neighbours Northern House Academy who are based across the road from us on South Parade. Northern House Academy is a primary school for pupils who have been identified as having Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) difficulties. Our pupils visit their classrooms weekly and offer support with class-based activities and once a week a group of Northern House pupils comes to St Edward’s where our Sixth Formers offer a range of craft, toys and games for the pupils. OX2 Collective is a youth theatre company that St Edward’s runs in partnership with The North Wall. The company includes pupils from Teddies and

a wonderful time and look forward to the next tournament. We have continued to build our relationships with Cutteslowe Community Partnership. In the summer holidays Teddies supported Cutteslowe Community Centre with their free Summer Programme of events for children aged 0-16. We contributed financially, as well as providing both sports and science activities and The North Wall Trust provided drama workshops, vegetable puppet making with ‘Madame Zucchini’ and an ‘Unknown Forest’ Nature Walk with Simon Daw. We continue to be involved in a number of weekly volunteering activities at Cutteslowe – not only do the St Edward’s pupils help at Cutteslowe Primary School, but also with the Cutteslowe Community Larder and Café and at the Community Garden Centre which is based in Cutteslowe Park. Our Catering Department continues

young people from the wider community. OX2 Collective performed in the Cutteslowe Light Trail, part of the Oxford Light Festival in November 2021. The group devised a promenade play, Light a Match , based on the themes of light, darkness and discovery. Pupils from St Edward’s l wrote and directed this promenade piece and young people from the wider community took part in the performance. We hosted our first hockey tournament for primary schools in December. This ‘Celebration of Hockey’ took place in conjunction with Oxford Hawks. All the schools involved have been receiving hockey coaching by either St Edward’s School or Oxford Hawks. Ella, a Year 5 pupil at St Aloysius Primary school, said, “It was a really fun day where I was inspired to take up hockey as a sport. I liked socialising with kids from other schools”. We welcomed over 190 Year 5 and Year 6 pupils who had