Warden Park fundraise for woodland development project

Warden Park Secondary Academy are looking to raise £7,000 to assist with plans to plant and maintain over 57 native English trees, alongside 500 saplings and a student-designed garden and outdoor learning area - a place where students can reconnect with nature whilst contributing to improve the environment.

Tree Action is a community interest company planning to work with five schools in the next two years. They are currently working in partnership with Warden Park Secondary Academy to help them plan and fundraise for the development of an orchard, woodland, gardens, and outdoor learning space. The students on the school grounds are involved, and will be responsible for building, designing, developing, and maintaining the site.

Tree Action was started to assist schools to start their own tree planting and biodiversity projects that students could take part in, so that students and the school can play a part in tackling climate change whilst giving young people the opportunity to connect with what’s proving to be increasingly more important that smartphones – nature.

Last year, Ben Woods – English teacher and House Co-ordinator – started a school Eco-Committee with the idea of raising awareness of the global climate crisis and how the school could help. Attached to the school is a large plot of land which had once been a thriving allotment area. Seeing the potential for use, Ben undertook the challenge to re-establish the importance of an outside learning space and set up links to the local community. Ben heard about the first Tree Action project at Shoreham Academy and contacted Ricky Purnell, the organiser, and also local community member Pauline Sutherland and a plan finally started to come together.

Tree Action brought an arborist to identify the potential for trees in the grounds. Space was identified for planting over 1,000 saplings, plus 57 standard 2-4 year old trees, including more fruit trees, 12 beeches and limes, and around 21 other standard trees.

Ben Woods commented: “We have a wonderful opportunity with so much space to be able to fill up with trees. It gives us an opportunity to engage the students and staff with the environment around them. We’re looking to raise money so we can introduce more trees onto the site, especially fruit trees.“

Ricky Purnell, Director and Event Co-ordinator of Tree Action UK said: “We believe the Warden Park Academy project is a great project that will greatly benefit the students for years to come. This project is a beacon for other schools who have not yet realised the potential for planting trees on site, schools who would like to but just do not feel they have the time and resources to achieve them.”

The £7,000 they are hoping to raise through crowdfunder.co.uk will enable the school to fund this project, and if they raise more, it would add further to the development of the school’s outdoor learning area. Tree Action and Warden Park Academy are offering some great rewards for their tree planting project including ‘Sponsor a Tree’ which will include a certificate of dedication designed by students, photo of your tree and a map showing its location. There’s also ‘tea and cake’ and a tour of the tree planting sites on offer for £20.

For more details go to their crowdfunding page: www.crowdfunder.co.uk/tree-action-uk

Great GCSE results from Warden Park

Warden Park is delighted to announce that our Year 11 students have achieved fantastic GCSE results this summer. In all subjects students have received grades in the new reformed GCSE qualifications, which have more demanding subject content and more challenging examinations. Therefore this exceptional set of GCSE results is a real testimony to the dedication and hard work of our students and our staff in achieving the ‘best from all’. The proportion of students who achieved impressive grades in both English and Maths was a headline measure for schools nationally and Warden Park’s performance was well above average.

Across all subjects a significant per cent of the grades achieved by students were at the very top. At Warden Park we offer a very wide range of subjects, and in 18 of these subjects over 80% of students achieved top grades, which is a tremendous testimony to the strength of teaching across the curriculum and of students’ hard work here at Warden Park.

Dom Kenrick, Headteacher, commented: “I am delighted that our Year 11 students have achieved such an outstanding set of results and it is a fitting reward for the determination to succeed academically that they have shown throughout their time at Warden Park.”

Village People: Dom Kenrick (Warden Park head)

By Simon Yeend

Dom Kenrick believes in special moments. Moments that children will remember. Moments that will enrich their lives.

Mr Kenrick has been Head of Warden Park Academy for just one term but has already stamped his mark on the school with this approach.

His is the first face most pupils will see when they arrive in the morning and the last face they see as they leave in the afternoon as he sees the kids off, encouraging, praising and looking hungrily at any apple pies baked in food technology that day!

“I’ll be out there in the morning to welcome students into school and in the evening I walk down to the road and wave the kids off and say thanks for all your hard work. It is important to do it so that students know that I think what they have done today matters. Perhaps they’ve got something that they’ve baked in food technology class or a piece of art work or something they have made, I will always ask about it. These little moments of recognition are important as they help to build confidence, resilience and self-esteem. Lots of the work students do is very challenging therefore it is important that they feel proud about what they have accomplished.”

His approach makes him a popular figurehead following his move in the summer from Steyning Grammar. And he has been pleasantly surprised by the number of girls at the school who get involved in sport and are succeeding in other areas of the school curriculum.

“There’s a massive number of young ladies here who are bucking the trend from every other school I’ve worked in, who are getting involved, being successful and being great role models, and hopefully going on to be healthy, successful adults in the future,” he explains.

“We’ve got girls working in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) and Year 8 girls working in coding – computer science at the Amex.

“There are a lot of opportunities for girls to play sport here, and they are picking it up. Here, more than in other schools I have worked in, it’s cool to be doing these things. 

“The number of kids who are here at 8 o’clock in the morning to play netball is fantastic.

That is all helped by teachers committing and parents supporting that by dropping them off early."

Full Story in January's issue of Cuckfield Life magazine