National Boarding Week 2021

Each summer, led by the Boarding Schools Association, we spend a week celebrating boarding in the broadest sense. Now in its seventh year, the focus for this year is the importance of health and wellbeing and therefore we have been encouraging all pupils, and staff, to get involved in activities to support their health and wellbeing. Getting a bit of a head start, at the weekend the Sixth Form students gave up their afternoon to organise and host Bartlett pupils for an afternoon of games and fun in the sun.

The benefits of giving to others through charity work and volunteering are well documented; on Monday in assembly three of our Lower Sixth girls, Davina, Chloe and Build, told us about the charity work they have done this year and the benefits they had enjoyed through doing it. Hopefully their stories will encourage others to also get involved.

National Boarding Week also marks the end of the Boarding Schools Association’s ‘Boarders Go Green Challenge’. Sponsored by Limitless, the company who provide our sports kit, they challenged member schools to together walk the equivalent of the distance across Africa, a mere 7,500 km! Various activities could contribute such as walking, cycling, running but also other ‘green’ activities such as recycling and seed planting.

Motivated by the challenge, pupils and staff have been up early walking on the Downs, Bartlett have been helping with the recycling and Sanderson have planted a range of seeds and plants in their indoor garden. Individual mention must go to Dara who through her running and cycling has contributed many kilometres to our total.

The activities so far add up to 725 km and we still have a few days to go!