During the Summer term’s wellbeing lessons on Friday afternoons, Third Form pupils have been going out on taster volunteering sessions as part of the College’s Service Programme.
The activities include helping at Wallace Fields Infants School, supporting nursery-age children with the chickens and gardening club. The Infants School children have greatly enjoyed and appreciated the help given by Epsom’s pupils.
“Lovely having the younger students helpers, think they enjoyed being here, we certainly enjoyed having them visit us” – Wallace Fields Infants School
The Lower School pupils have also volunteered at Kingswood Care home, assisting with activities which included playing musical chairs at a resident’s birthday party! These sessions have offered our pupils an insight into working with older people, some of whom are suffering with Dementia.
“Having the younger students from Epsom College involved in life at Kingswood Court has been a real breath of fresh air,” says Campbell Lyle, Director, Kingswood Court.
“The students have been involved in a range of activities, including competitive musical chairs. This has proved to be a very popular spectator sport and has generated much joy and laughter for our residents (and the Epsom College students). This complements the somewhat more refined input of the senior school pupils (chess, cards, musical recitals) well. A big thank you to Epsom College.”
From September, the programme will be extended to the Lower Fourth who will volunteer on a more regular basis as part of their activity sessions. One area will be planting and maintaining two Epsom College Lower School flower wheelbarrows, which will be positioned in Banstead High Street. All pupils will be accompanied by an adult member of staff.
“We hope that the Third form pupils have enjoyed their sessions and have been able to appreciate the value of volunteering and the positive difference they can make. We have been especially grateful for the continued support from our placement providers who have opened up opportunities for the Lower School to be involved in volunteering,” says Roshie Watkins, Service Co-ordinator at Epsom.
