Charity Events
Actively involved in hosting and helping out at charity events, Westbourne School is able to donate regularly to charities chosen by students and staff.
The annual Halloween Parties, organised by the Sixth Formers for the whole of the Senior School, have been a growing success year after year. In 2009 £300 was raised and in 2010 £400 was raised. This year, we were expecting to beat our target with a combined ‘Wear it Pink for Breast Cancer’ and Halloween Party and we did – raising near to £550!
The Christmas Ball saw £400 go to Marie Curie and through the Wine Tasting Evening and Quiz, Westbourne was able to donate £1,100 for improvements towards Zambian hospitals.
Our 2011 Operation Christmas Child Appeal yielded a total of 61 boxes for this amazing cause, which provided disadvantaged children in Africa with presents to open this Christmas.
While students take the initiative and work hard to support their chosen causes, there are experienced CAS and IB teachers ready to lend a hand, if students ever need support or guidance with events. Both the CAS and the IB coordinator of Westbourne School have had extensive experience organising and assisting student voluntary work overseas.
Trips and Events 2011 Autumn Term
Westbourne is also a vibrant school with many trips and events going on throughout the school.
On Monday 26th September Westbourne School and Westbourne School Sixth Form celebrated European Day of Languages by dressing up in their native dress, sharing cultural experiences and learning essential phrases in each other's languages. Year 12 student Roberto Caputo said, “It was a great experience, which involved all the school and all the foreign students, who had the chance to show to everybody a little bit of their county, and I will remember it as a really good day!"
From 28th September to the 2nd October, a number of the Westbourne Sixth Form completed the Duke of Edinburgh Gold expedition – 4 days and 3 nights of walking and camping in the wilderness of mid Wales.
Year 13 student Anna te Water Naudé reported “[Completing the Duke of Edinburgh Award]… is a wonderful sense of achievement, and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience complete isolation – very bizarre, yet equally beautiful. To be able to say we have navigated independently through 80km of Wales using nothing but a compass and a map is quite a feat!"
Year 13 student and Head Boy, Ruben Pritchard, added, "Duke of Edinburgh Gold was a great experience. Surviving and navigating through the sheep filled tundra of Aberystwyth was definitely a challenge. Throughout the long 50-mile walk we saw amazing views of open countryside. The boys’ group was great fun, filled with a constant stream of singing, playing games and making jokes."
On Monday the 10th of October Westbourne School held a trip to Paris. Year 10 pupil Freddie Dewey said “The trip to Paris was very fun and I think that everybody who went thoroughly enjoyed it. We went to a traditional French market, where we were given the task of having a French conversation and to navigate our way around with French instructions. We also went to Euro Disney, which was also amazing. We went on a sightseeing trip to Paris, where we went up to the Eiffel Tower and saw attractions like the Arc de Triumphe, the Champs Elysees and Notre Dame Cathedral. Altogether the trip was a massive success.”
On Thursday 3rd November 2011 Year 1 and Year 2 visited St Fagans National History Museum. They looked at a number of buildings from all over Wales and were able to see how people lived in the past. The children were shown around Rhyd–y–car, a row of houses from Merthyr Tydfil. This enabled them to explore the differences between ways of life between 1805 and 1985.
The children also visited Maestir School and took part in a role-play session where they were able to dress up and re-enacted a school lesson during the 1890’s. They were given the opportunity to see what life was like at this time for Victorian children. The day was educational, as well as interesting, and everyone had a wonderful time.