Over Half Term, Oundle School sent its first delivery of books and equipment to Books2Africa, an international non-governmental organisation that collects and distributes books and educational materials to equip students and establish libraries within classrooms, schools and communities across Africa.
Head of Charities and History teacher, Ian Clark delivered over 1500 books in seventy-five boxes in addition to some sports equipment. A Silent Disco in May raised money to pay for transportation.
The initiative came from Head of Chemistry Jonathan Peverley, who commented, “Education rarely stands still and reflecting the decision of the Government’s education policy to transition from a modular exam system (where pupils sit a set of exams over a period of two years) to a linear system of assessment (where all exams are sat in the final term of the U6 year), the start of the 2015 academic year saw this applied across a selected number of subjects. Exam boards have consequently revised their syllabi, which has given departments across the School an opportunity to reconsider their choice of exam board and syllabus.
Due to this change, a large volume of textbooks are starting to become obsolete. Traditionally, these textbooks would have been collected and then ‘pulped’. However, Oundle School has set itself a goal to collect as many as possible and donate them to Books2Africa.”