Round Square Committee Community Day

St Mary’s Round Square Committee held a Community Day on Tuesday 3 July, inviting elderly family members and residents from the local area to join in a jam-packed day of activities designed to help, educate and provide an uplifting experience to all. The visitors had the opportunity to try out new technology in our IT suite, some were learning simple online shopping techniques with others tackling more complex tasks such as using Photoshop to alter images. The students were offered a tour of the GCSE Art Exhibition, followed by a light lunch and a short student-led concert.

The afternoon was rounded off with a poetry activity, homemade afternoon tea, prepared by the students and an inspiring talk from Roger Bullen of the Catherine Bullen Foundation. He talked about their charitable work over in South West Africa, in memory of their daughter Catherine who sadly passed away whilst volunteering with communities in Namibia.

Everyone enjoyed their time at St Mary’s, it was lovely to see people aged 11 to 100 getting involved in the activities and taking part in such a rewarding day. All were invited to come back again next year!

In 2017/18 St Mary’s became a member of the international organisation of schools, Round Square which consists of 180 innovative schools, across 50 countries and 6 continents.

The key principle of Round Square is the commitment to ‘character education’ and it is based on the principles of the educationalist Kurt Hahn who also set up the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme.

Round Square is centred around six IDEALS:

• International understanding

• Democracy

• Environmental awareness

• Adventure

• Leadership

• Service

Tuesday’s Community Day focused on the Service element – with the students providing service to the wider St Mary’s community as well as taking the opportunity to learn from them.