LEAD

Developing kindness and integrity is as important as achieving academically.

TASIS England offers a world-class education with a global outlook that nurtures future leaders brimming with the potential to positively contribute to the world. Our international community fosters independent, critical thinkers and compassionate, principled learners, ready to accomplish great things. Discover your path at TASIS England.

Our beautiful 46-acre campus in Thorpe, Surrey, is only 45 minutes from central London with a bus service available.

own school and see the value in working with people from other walks of life. “They find the experience incredibly enriching.”

Faith Hagerty brought other talents into play last year when the school led on an initiative called Strictly Heads. This was cross sector, bringing 16 schools together in a Strictly-style dance competition between headteachers to raise funds for icandance, a charity delivering dance and movement to young people with disabilities. This school-wide affair included pupil committees launching their own dance-related fundraising initiatives. There was also an Online Youth Seminar with children from each school and young people from the charity.

The Strictly Heads dance event was a huge success, raising well over £12,000. This year sees a similar cross sector initiative – Strictly Headers, with another 16 school leaders competing in a football match in May. This time, schools are working with the charity Play it Forward, which uses football as a vehicle to engage young people in southern Zambia in educational projects.

Emanuel School

Primary Ambitions is Emanuel School’s Friday flagship enrichment programme and sees Year 5 and 6 children from 16 partner schools visiting the Battersea school for educational enrichment activities. Led by the Lower Sixth at Emanuel, this Friday-afternoon activity offers 285 pupils a fabulous array of studentled options – from filmmaking and DJing and science and robotics to art and drama.

In fact, Emanuel partners with 32 state primary and secondary schools locally and Lisa Irwin, Head of Community Partnerships & Outreach, says the activities and enrichment are multi-faceted. Ascent is a programme offering academic support for Year 5 children and GCSE boosters. There are fruitful collaborations between Year 6 pupils at Emanuel and partner schools. The school also acts as host for sports tournaments, literary quizzes, performances, cultural opportunities, careers’ fairs, collaborative debating and French clubs.

“We are constantly on the look out for opportunities to share resources and opportunities with our partners,” says Lisa Irwin. All Emanuel pupils benefit from these interactions and for the Lower Sixth pupils who lead Primary Ambitions, the experience is formative – they become role models and teachers. “They develop their leadership, facilitation and teamworking skills. It is wonderful to see them embrace the challenge and grow in confidence through the 20 weeks of the programme.”

Lisa Irwin says that the benefits to pupils include looking outwards, showing empathy and helping others, and they are actively encouraged to make connections through community service, volunteering, entrepreneurship and fundraising. “Effective partnerships are mutually beneficial. Our goal is to inspire, share and learn with our partners for the collective good.”

Emanuel School is active in borough-wide initiatives. It supported an art project, ‘Place to Call Home’ that included 13 independent and over 50 state schools across the borough. Emanuel is also working with Putney High School in support of its annual crossborough sports extravaganza involving partner primary and secondary schools.

There are other strong links across the wider community. For instance, the school’s mini Astro is shared with Fulham Football Club Foundation and Wayfarers’ Flyerz to coach disability football and hockey. The school provides free weekly swimming lessons for partner schools and meeting facilities for community organisations such as ACEN (African Caribbean Education Network).

“We are very proud of our partnerships programme,” says Stuart Turner, Deputy Head: Co-Curricular, Partnerships and Admissions. “We are ambitious for our pupils in all ways, but we want them to recognise their place within the community and realise the positive impressions they can make on others.”