State and independent schools have a shared mission with moral purpose – providing excellent education for all children who can then, together, make the world a better place. Reigate Grammar School’s community partnership programme is part of our core purpose.
We support dozens of school partnership projects such as ‘crime scene’ forensic science and ‘I’m a Geographer get me out of here’ in academic areas such as science, humanities and the arts. We share our sports grounds, swimming pool, minibuses and more. For example, we host the annual district sports competition each summer for 500 primary school pupils. Winners are awarded with ‘speed masterclasses’ run by RGS students and coaches. We run workshops in music, theatre, art, sport and languages for local schools and perform regularly to local schools including, for example a Puppet Show local tour. These examples and more are all outlined on the School’s Together page.
Local senior schools are included in many partnership strands, for example, attending a recent RGS lecture by Sir Malcolm Rifkind, former cabinet minister; a seminar on poetry by Joe Nutt, TES columnist; our Higher Education evening, employment talks, careers convention, universities events and Oxbridge preparation programmes.
In total, over 1000 local state school children benefit from our community programmes.
Our students engaged in over 5000 hours of volunteering just last year, helping care homes, charities, environmental projects, community groups for the elderly, a residential home for children with brain injury, foodbanks and primary schools. Sixth Form Students volunteer in the community as a requirement of the Henry Smith Diploma, named after Reigate Grammar School’s founder who remains a role model for philanthropy and civic engagement.
Our students raise tens of thousands of pounds and volunteer for charities including local ones such as Loveworks and The Children’s Trust whilst our staff teach and help as Governors at local schools.
RGS supports a wide range of community groups with sponsorship and facilities such as scouts, choirs and church groups. We host a range of sports camps in hockey, cricket, rugby, netball and swimming and more during the school holidays for local children. The RGS Saturday Music College takes place each week at RGS as a local conservatoire for over 60 young musicians to have lessons, participate in ensembles, musicianship classes and much more. Since its inception RGS has been a main supporter of the annual charity Run Reigate event by designing medals, providing water stations, minibuses and more.
Approximately, 170 local children at RGS are on means tested bursaries. Many of these are large bursaries (up to 100% of fees plus meals, travel, uniform allowances and grants for school trips). RGS works in partnership with Raven Housing, the biggest local housing association to promote social mobility; and we work directly with schools in the area to promote access to these bursaries so that, for example, our ‘Free School Meals’ intake is about double that of an average state grammar school.
RGS’s outreach benefits RGS staff and students, developing responsibility and moral purpose helping them to be conscientious and committed individuals.
