Overview

THE FORDER PROGRAMME

As a community, we can be remarkably proud of the way our staff, students and wider College community responded to the challenges presented by the pandemic. For so many, the need to focus on curriculum adjustment had to become the sole focus, but not at St Dunstan’s. The co-curriculum would remain a priority for all! Whether in school and having to adapt to restrictions, or remote and delivering a Virtual Forder Programme, our community has been able to demonstrate the values that are central to the College and cocurriculum in order to sustain a broad, diverse and ambitious offering. Reverend Forder himself would have been proud!

The year started with a change in expectation for students in Year 7–11, which saw them sign up for co-curricular clubs throughout the week during the timetabled lesson that we are fortunate to retain in the middle of the day – a real statement of intent from our College community. In order to support this increase in demand the staff were able to offer between 40 and 50 clubs each day for students across the year groups to enjoy. Restrictions on numbers in clubs and year group bubbles meant that many of our most popular multi-year group clubs had to demonstrate great creativity in order to make the necessary adjustments. Drama and Adventurous Activity became single year group clubs and were offered across the whole week. We retained Saturday sport relying on internal competitions to give students something to prepare for; CCF parade

continued for Years 10 and 11, and some of our major music ensembles were forced to use the marketing tent for rehearsals in order to ensure sufficient ventilation. Where there is a will there is a way! Clearly many of our clubs use major events throughout the year to give students something to work towards, and this term presented our first foray into live streaming. The Remembrance Day service stands out in particular, with the CCF, Music Department and Tech Club students all working together to deliver a moving event worthy of the occasion. The transition to a Virtual Forder Programme in the Lent Term was nothing new for us having delivered a virtual programme throughout the first lockdown. We combined weekly clubs with longer term projects and the levels of student engagement really were exceptional. Favourite clubs included Debating, Go Club, Photography (which included our LGBTQ+ themed competition) and Digital Art, the R2C (Ready to Climb) Project, the Virtual Strava Competition and our weekly Workout Wednesday, not forgetting the regular Virtual Concerts that we were able to compile and share through our social media channels. The real highlight though, must be the Summer 2021 Forder offering which gave us the opportunity to welcome all students back into the building, to the clubs that they love. We only have students in regular timetabled lessons for a very short period in the Trinity term, but Adventure Week and The St Dunstan’s Festival - appropriately themed ‘Celebrating Courageous Community’ - gave everyone so much to look forward to. Delivering these two major events in a way that adhered

strictly to government guidance to keep everyone safe was a remarkable challenge, but we were in no doubt that the potential value to students would make it all worthwhile. Seeing students spend Adventure Week away together engaged in camping, orienteering, climbing, kayaking, coasteering, adventure racing, combat archery, team building, high ropes and many more activities was a joy to behold after the challenges of the past year. Then on to the Festival with daily workshops, volunteering events, concerts, dramatic performances, exhibitions and celebrations of student achievement at the Sports Dinner and our annual Prize Giving; truly finishing on a high! Congratulations to staff, students and parents alike for your continued commitment to the co-curriculum, when it would have been easier to put it on hold. The Forder Programme really does showcase everything that is special about our community, and we can all be proud of what we have been able to achieve in the last year.