Community

“Pupils display an outstanding sense of social responsibility.” ISI Inspection Report 2019

At Solefield we place a strong importance on helping others and we educate our pupils to become compassionate, caring individuals. By participating in a variety of fundraising activities and events each year, we hope our pupils will learn they can make a difference to the lives of others, and that by working together we can help bring about change.

Community Outreach 

We support at least three charities every term, lead by our Year 8 Deputy Head Pupil (Charities) who works closely with our teacher in charge of charities, along with our Headmistress. 

We provide regular opportunities for members of our school to help and support the wider community by giving their time and effort. We seek out events for children to attend and take part in, including ‘Clean Up’ Sevenoaks; our choirs also sing on the community stage at Sevenoaks Festival, as well as singing at local churches and retirement homes. 

Charitable initiatives are included in our pupils' holiday 'Take Away menu' as well as our Year 7&8 Senior School Diploma and as part of our whole school project.

We share the following within and around our community:

• We share our academic best practice with teachers and pupils from other local state schools, and invite teachers from these schools in for a working lunch for events such as our whole school Art Exhibition, chess coaching sessions and hold competitions between our pupils and other local schools such as Amherst Primary School. 
• We share our sporting and debating best practice with teachers and pupils from state schools, where we offer coaching sessions to local primary schools
• Share our facilities with teachers and pupils from state school and the wider community, develop ways to host more community events, support local state schools with the staging of their plays by donating or loaning props and costumes for school plays
• Share our visiting speakers, workshops, and plays with teachers and pupils from state schools. We have Thinking Allowed guest speakers for staff and older pupils (and visiting schools), and invited pupils from St John’s Primary in Sevenoaks, to our plays and to hear our visiting speakers 

Charities & Giving

We support a variety of charities both at home and abroad. We continue to support the Naturally Africa Charity in Malawi and actively look to donate equipment, fundraise and keep in contact to see how we can best help. We sent three teachers to Malawi to train staff, help them build a new classroom, and we donated books, uniform and computers. 

Closer to home, we are proud to support our local football club, Sevenoaks Town Football Club as well as Sevenoaks Suns Basketball Club with the use of our facilities.

In addition, we support our local food bank at Harvest Festival and our Year 8 Charities Prefect identifies various charitable causes to champion throughout the year. The Evelina London Children’s Hospital, Plastic Oceans, Red Cross Typhoon Haiyan Appeal and Cancer Research UK are some of the charities we are proud to have supported recently.

Our Year 8 Prefects for Team G (ECO) and School Council are also involved in supporting various causes, demonstrating our whole school approach to valuing our world and those around us. In recent years they have raised money for a local women's refuge, sponsored Koalas after the devasting fires in Australia and provided a new sensory garden for the school.

Pupils at Solefield are instilled with an understanding of the world around them and are passionate in supporting good causes.

We support the elderly in our community:

• we are a Sevenoaks Warm Space, 
• we continue yearly Grandparents’ Day,
• we perform at local retirement homes 

Donations

• Reading community links: books donated and reading reps help in primary schools 
• Creating a bank of Outreach Boxes: Religious Studies artefacts, VR Headsets, 3D printer (a collection of subject-specific classroom resources available on loan to schools) 
• We seek out ways to use equipment we no longer require to support other causes and donate equipment where possible to other local state schools. We have donated goal posts, costumes and choral risers