Chestnut Grove celebrates the grand opening of its new buildings and grounds, supported by local MP Rosena Allin-Khan. PROUD represents the school’s values: Positive, Resilient, Open-Minded, Unified and Determined


Find out how Chestnut Grove Academy and Horsington Church School ran successful crowdfunding campaigns


We did it! ‘OUR COVID-19 CRISIS CAMPAIGN SURPASSED ITS TARGET IN LESS THAN 24 HOURS’


‘Chestnut Grove Academy is a medium-sized secondary school in Balham, south London, with a large number of SEN pupils and a lot of children receiving free school meals. We pride ourselves on our inclusivity and unwavering determination to support every single member of our learning community. At the beginning of the lockdown,


our PTA, the Friends of Chestnut Grove, launched a campaign for our students who had no access to online learning because of a lack of IT. They managed to get more


than 30 laptops donated by the community and raised £4,000 in a campaign to purchase a further 16 that were needed. The laptops were cleaned and then loaded with software by the school’s IT


6 SUMMER 2020 FundEd


department, and delivered by a team of teachers on pushbikes! We also launched a crowdfunding


campaign on DonateMySchool.com to support the families of pupils who needed urgent help during the crisis. We were aware that a vast number of our families had lost their solvency due to the closure of their workplaces or reduction of income, while low-income families had been plunged to new, extremely worrying depths of financial struggle. As with many other schools


across the country, lockdown meant that overnight our students were shut out of busy classrooms, bustling sports grounds and a lively canteen. They found themselves in a new world of isolation and, for many of our students, this was a


world of poverty and resulting tensions within the family home. While we have maintained


regular contact with all our students, this does not replicate the safety, sanctuary and support of the school environment. Our crowdfunding campaign


page outlined how we were looking to raise funds to ensure that our


children do not experience hunger or sanitary poverty, or are left without access to our remote curriculum. Our initial target was to raise £7,000 to provide food vouchers and purchase other essentials (such as toiletries)


‘It’s been heartening to see


how generously people in our community have responded’


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