Courageous Advocacy

A courageous advocate is someone who supports, champions and speaks up for a cause that is important and meaningful to them. Courage is needed to persevere and stand up for something or someone you believe in, to make a difference.

At St Mary's, there are lots of ways our staff and pupils show courageous advocacy...

Supporting Charities

We have supported a wide range of charities at St Mary's over the last year, with both awareness-raising and fund-raising initiatives.

Chestnut Tree House

In 2023/24, the School Council chose Chestnut Tree House as it's sponsored charity, and committed to participating in their Big Hoot fundraiser, which saw schools and businesses raise funds to sponsor and paint owl sculptures for a Sussex-wide art exhibition.

Thanks to sponsorship from a local business and generous parent donation, we were able to raise over £1,000 for the charity. Pupils entered an art competition to come up with the design for our owl, then every child in the school took part in painting him!

'Little Night Owl'

Painted by all the pupils of St Mary's

Turning Tides

There was a growing concern from some pupils about local homelessness, which led to a lot of questions in school.

Thanks to the education team at Turning Tides, we were able to provide a school assembly that explained the difficulties people face in child-friendly terms, as well as a workshop for Year 6 which explored the issue of local homelessness in more depth, giving children a greater understanding of why and how people end up on the streets, and the challenges they face.

Following the assembly, the School Council proposed a fundraiser to support the work of Roffey Place, and through selling off unwanted library books at the Christmas Fair, were able to purchase art resources from the Roffey Place Amazon Wishlist, for their rehabilitation work.

The Children's Society

Our popular annual Christingle Service raises funds for The Children's Society, and provides a valuable opportunity to learn more about the important work they do.

As well as collecting financial donations, staff and children respond in prayer and contribute their own prayers to this special service.

We pray for those in the middle of unrest and war, that they may know Your peace. We pray for those who are unwell and ask for Your healing hand to touch them. We pray for the lonely and unhappy, may they know your comfort and love.

Home for Good

At Christmas in 2023, St Mary's Church asked us to support their fundraising for the charity Home for Good, and Rev. Lisa spoke a little about the charity in our Advent service.

As a result, some children wanted to understand more what it meant to be fostered or adopted, and in response to their questions we invited the charity into a school assembly to talk to us. It allowed the children to ask questions, and begin to understand what life can be like for people whose families look different from their own.

I think it's amazing that some people want to help others by letting them join their family. I didn't know you could do that.

Horsham Community Food Bank

At our annual Harvest Festival and throughout the year, we hold regular collections for donations of food items for Horsham Community Food Bank. By putting out pleas for most-needed items, we hope to help meet the need in our local community.

We also act as a centre for distribution of food vouchers, enabling us to support families most in need.

Toilet Twinning

All of the toilets at St Mary's School are twinned with toilets in developing countries, supporting work to improve access to clean water and safe sanitation in rural areas.

In total, we have twinned ten different toilets.

The children find it interesting to see the pictures of different toilets from around the world - it makes us realise how lucky we are to have nice toilet facilities with safe running water here in Horsham!

Family Support Work

When children leave St Mary's, we take part in fundraising through legacy donations to support The Sussex Charity for Children. In 2024, we contributed to the £4,551 raised in total by Horsham school leavers, which went towards their Family Support Work.

Environmental Responsibility

Environmental responsibility is part of our school development plan. As well as making changes at a strategic level, our staff and pupils are encouraged to find ways they can make a change and have a positive impact on the environment.

Reducing single use plastics

After talking about the impact of plastic on the environment in collective worship, the School Council are on a mission to reduce single-use plastics in school!

So far this year, they have written to our school lunch company and successfully removed single use plastic cups from school dinner service, and have petitioned school leadership to trial refillable glue sticks instead of disposable ones.

We look forward to finding more ways we can reduce single-use plastics in school over the next year!

Furniture recycling

When we decomissioned our IT suite to make a new space for an after school club, we were keen to reduce waste and repurpose as much furniture as we could.

Thanks to a member of staff spotting a plea on Facebook for school furniture, we were able to donate all of our unwanted chairs to Day Spring Academy in Kitwe, Zambia, where they were put to good use.

Here they are about to embark on their journey!

Taking public transport

This year, Mrs Harrison and Mrs Smith led the way in replacing coach travel with public transport for school trips, proving that trains are a cheaper, faster and more environmentally friendly option. It wasn't long before Miss Francis got in on the action too, and we successfully took classes on trains to The Science Museum, Natural History Museum, Amberley Museum and London Monument!

We now have a comprehensive Public Transport Protocol, demonstrating our commitment to using sustainable travel.

london travel protocols and risk assessment.pdf

Inspired Actions

From time to time, a pupil, parent or member of staff will approach us with a suggestion for something they feel strongly about. When someone feels called to take action, we love to support them. Here are some of the ways the St Mary's community has taken action over the last year...

Friendship bracelets

Following a Picture News assembly on spreading friendship, a group of Year 3 pupils were inspired to make and sell friendship bracelets at the school summer fair, to raise funds for a playground friendship stop.

The bracelets are currently in production, we look forward to seeing them for sale on 12th July!

Picture News Assembly - 27th June

Rucksacks for refugees

A recent change in our demographic sees us taking a lot of pupils recently arrived in the UK with refugee or asylum seeker status.

Realising that children were regularly turning up without basic school uniform or equipment and little in the way of preparation, our learning mentor, Mrs Carter, began making rucksacks with the essentials and a few luxuries to welcome new pupils to the school, and provide the essentials in their first few days.

Hearing of this initiative, the local offices of RSA made a generous donation to the school to ensure this work could continue, funding not just rucksacks but also places in extra-curricular clubs to support newly arrived pupils.

So far, we have bought uniform, school bags, school equipment, school shoes and provided after school activities for all those who have arrived since September 2023.

Lemonade stand

Alex, William, Florrie and Alice set up a stall at home to sell lemonade, chillies and tomatoes (grown in their garden) because they wanted to raise money to donate to school. They raised £17.50 pounds, which was used to buy glue sticks and beanbags at their request, because they noticed we were running low!

St Mary's Angels Fund

A parent wrote to us last year, asking if there was a way they could make anonymous donations to help cover the costs for families struggling to afford school trips.

From this one email, St Mary's Angels Fund was born. Parents and carers are invited to donate to the fund, which is used to subsidise costs for families in hardship. To date, the kindness of the community has helped more than a dozen families who would have otherwise been unable to contribute to school expenses, benefiting all children by enabling us to continue with a broad, rich and exciting extra-curricular offer.

A Drastic Haircut!

After years of growing her hair, Roxy decided to chop it all off and donate her lovely locks to the Little Princess Trust - a charity which provides wigs and hairpieces to children with hairloss. What a courageous action!