Thank you John Grant School!

"We enjoyed making people happy by selling cakes and plants to help others." 

A huge thank you for the pupils and staff of John Grant School near Great Yarmouth for fundraising in support of Aspire, our accommodation centre for young people in the town. We have been really touched by their kindness and support for local people.

John Grant School caters for pupils with complex needs, including severe learning difficulties, Autistic Spectrum Disorder and profound and multiple learning difficulties. Their age range is from reception to 19 years of age. The school was designated as a Specialist Sports College in July 2009. It has a number of awards that recognise the range and quality of its work, including Eco Schools and Healthy Schools status. They are also an Operation Encompass School.

At John Grant School they are committed to their whole school ethos of “Working together, to be the very best that we can be.”  Below, the staff and pupils explain more about what inspired them to support our charity:

“During this term pupils in Lapwing and Owls class have been learning about homelessness in their PSHE lessons. They have developed an understanding of what being homeless means and some of the the misconceptions around what it is to be homeless, the type of people that become homeless and the various reasons that may cause someone to be homeless.

“During their learning, the pupils in the class felt they wanted to give back to our local homeless people. They understood that it was easy to become homeless and the stereotypical homeless person was an inaccurate representation of what homeless meant. They felt passion around helping the homeless, with many pupils saying they could relate to them personally now they understood what it actually meant. Therefore, the pupils researched different homelessness charities in our area and chose to raise money for Aspire, The Benjamin Foundation’s accommodation centre for young people in Great Yarmouth.

“The pupils discussed different ideas for how they wanted to raise money. After great deliberation, they chose to do a big sale day. Lapwing class chose to do a bake sale in which they baked cakes and savoury treats to sell to pupils and staff at school, whilst Owls class chose to sell a variety of plants. This ended up being spread of a couple of days due to the success and amount of items we had to sell resulting in a total amount raised of £100.19.”

Kate George, CoEducator at John Grant School said: “When a member of The Benjamin Foundation staff came in and told their stories it touched the hearts of the pupils who then wanted to do something to help. The process of making and selling the cakes made them proud to be part of our school and being able to help their community. It has been lovely to allow the pupils to organise and develop skills in a way which makes them think about helping others and we are proud of how our pupils took on this responsibility and were able to help other young people like themselves in the process.”

Christopher, age 11 from Owls Class said: “We enjoyed making people happy by selling cakes and plants to help others.”

Shane, age 13 from Lapwing Class said: “I think that the cake sale went well, and that the ladies who came in were really good. They were very kind and it made me happy to know their story and know our money will help them.”

Thank you so much to everyone at John Grant School for raising over £100 to support local young people.

If you’re also interested in fundraising for our charity, we would love to hear from you! Please get in touch with Josh, our Fundraising Officer on [email protected]