Celebrating the First-Ever Giving Day

Celebrating the First-Ever Giving Day Melanie Bushell, Development Director & Georgia Radford, Teacher of Learning Support

Since the launch of The William Smith Fund in 2015, the support of many hundreds of donors has helped the school increase the proportion of Senior School pupils receiving some level of fee assistance from 1 in 9 to 1 in 7.

The school has an ambitious long-term target of supporting 1 in 4 pupils. To achieve that amazing goal, it will be necessary to get the whole school behind the cause and that is how the idea of running PGS’s first Giving Day came about.Very new to UK schools, Giving Days are time-limited (2436 hours) digitally driven fundraising and engagement campaigns which rally a school’s whole community behind a particular cause. Campaigns like Children in Need and Comic Relief are very similar to Giving Days, with their focus on a particular cause on a particular date. This enormously generous pledge spurred us on to make our first Giving Day the very best it could be.

Our first major success was to find a donor willing to match a proportion of the donations, so that the first gifts received on the Giving Day would be worth double. The Calleva Foundation, which is run by Stephen Butt OP and his wife Caroline, very generously stepped forward to pledge up to £100,000 of support – a spectacular sum. Up to £80,000 of this would match donations pound for pound and the other £20,000 was set aside to support specific pupil and fundraising challenges. We selected a 36-hour period from 8 a.m. on Wednesday 10th March 2021 through to 8 p.m. on Thursday 11th, not knowing at the time that this would end up being the middle of the first week back on the school site for everyone after the second full national lockdown. This turned the whole event into a massive celebration of the school community coming back together.

The overall theme of #BeTheDifference was chosen to reflect both the difference that a bursary can make to a young person, and the difference that PGS, its staff and pupils can make to the communities in and around Portsmouth. We also wanted to highlight 1732, the school’s foundation year.

While the Development Office set about gathering the stories of current and former pupils whose lives had been changed through receiving a bursary to attend PGS, and planning the fundraising messaging, Mrs Radford was asked by Dr Cotton to design some fun and thought-provoking challenges for Senior School pupils. In the Junior School, Mrs Evans planned a series of activities for the pupils which would add up to 1732, while Mr Ashcroft and Mrs Millward quietly hatched their own astonishing plan …..

Senior School

Planning for the Senior School remained focused on heightening our pupils’ awareness of the ability they each have, to create positive change within their communities.

1732 Breakfast Bash

We launched the programme a week before the big day. Whether pupils were still working remotely or back in school, they began with a breakfast bash.

Tutor groups across the Senior School came together in a celebration of their collective and individual roles within the PGS community and beyond the Arch. Pancake competitions onsite were rivalled by elaborate ‘PGS’ and ‘1732’ themed breakfast challenges at home.

Over breakfast, tutor groups shared discussions around the psychological benefits of giving, how acts of giving have helped members of our community past and present, and how their actions over the next week could contribute to positively influencing the lives of others.

The three-hour #BeTheDifference Challenge

Throughout the rest of the morning, pupils embarked on their mission to #BeTheDifference, and what a difference they made! The positive contributions made by so many in just three hours was astounding, ranging from litter picking and donations to food banks, and from beach cleans to truly inspirational acts of kindness in the community.

Baking was a popular activity and we were delighted to receive photographs and messages from people across the city and beyond, who were grateful to have received cakes, cookies, and kind messages from pupils in our school.

#BeTheDifference

Congratulations...

...to the #BeTheDifference Challenge winners who were each responsible for unlocking Giving Day funds from the Calleva Foundation.

Year 7 – Reuben Cooper, who donated clothes to a charity shop and also penned a poem for his local old people’s home (awarded overall Middle School winner)

Year 8 – Siha Hoque, who circulated back issues of a weekly newspaper to fellow residents in her block of flats before recycling them

Year 9 – Oscar Mellers, who volunteered at a food bank, collecting donations from supermarkets, stocking shelves, and making up packages for delivery (awarded overall Upper School winner).

Year 10 – Will Gadd, who undertook a mammoth litter pick in his local area.

Year 11 – Owen McGovern, who cleaned the beach and even inspired his brother to join in

Year 12 – Susannah Starkey who baked shortbread for a recently widowed neighbour and also composed a piece for flute that she played to local care homes residents once restrictions eased (awarded overall 6th form winner)

Will Woodrow litter picking

Year 13 – Isabel Richardson who baked muffins for the staff and volunteers at a neighbourhood care home.

We showcased OPs and staff to help fundraising on the day

Junior School

There was plenty of action in the Junior School where Mrs Evans and her colleagues had cooked up a fiendish set of physical and creative challenges -which added up to 1732 - to keep pupils busy all day and send everyone home exhausted.

How the 1732 added up...

The PE teachers had put together a series of cardio exercises 1000 reps Dan the Skipping Man ran a fantastic skipping workshop 700 reps Pupils were challenged to write a 30-word poem 30 Pupils learned two dances 2

=1732

Pupils of all ages also brought in pocket money and loose change from home to create the figure 1732 in coins in the Quad and gathered a staggering £752.44 for Giving Day funds in the process.