Community Links

Links with local schools

The College has provided a number of fantastic learning and enrichment days for local primary and secondary schools again this year. Well established events such as the Mandarin day for Stanford Junior School gave Year 5 and 6 pupils a taste of China - its food and culture - and the Travelling Science Show visited a number of Primary Schools in the area to deliver a series of dynamic hands on experiments and demonstrations. The Business Studies departments ever popular AS revision day played host to Year 13 pupils from Varndean, BHASVIC, Cardinal Newman and Blatchington Mill Schools who benefited from a talk by Malcolm Surridge, Chief Examiner for AQA Business Studies who delivered an effective insight on how to secure the highest grades. Similarly, pupils from Varndean and Worthing Sixth Form College joined our U5th for our annual University aspirations evening where representatives from five top class universities including Oxford and Cambridge come along to talk about Higher Education. The experts addressed specific issues such as A Level subject combination, Student Finance and "just what are those Admissions Tutors looking for?" giving all in attendance valuable insight into the UCAS application process. The long running Community Service programme also continues to reinforce links with six local primary schools, by providing assistance at various after school clubs on a weekly basis. In addition to this over ten local primary schools were assisted by pupils from all years on Make a Difference Day by working on literacy, numeracy and art in the classroom. Others worked supporting the teaching staff by photocopying, filing and pulling together resources, freeing the teachers to concentrate on what they do best.

New projects include the Saturday school masterclasses for Gifted and Talented Year 5 pupils from Primary Schools across the city and Sussex. The 40 available places for each of the courses, started with the Mandarin and Science winter workshops, were quickly snapped up and enthusiastically received. Pupils discovered exciting aspects of science in a range of activities over four weeks which included re-enacting Newton's experiments, using electricity to purify metals, how to curve a ball in sport and even how to fly. The Mandarin department provided a virtual tour of China by giving an introduction to pinyin, tones and strokes for characters greetings before focusing on Chinese food, philosophy and fireworks. The Art and Design Technology departments also ran very popular courses for the gifted and talented on themes which included 'Pop Art' and etching photography with lasers! In another initiative, fifteen members of our U5th were joined by forty five pupils from Kingsford Community, Oakmeeds and Warden Park schools to face the challenge of developing their own ideas for a social enterprise. Councillor Carolyn Lambert, Chair of Lewes District Council and tutor on the Master of Studies in Social Enterprise at Cambridge, gave an overview stressing that along with helping the community a social enterprise exists to make a profit which is then ploughed back. The challenge and objectives were set and the pupils, working in eight teams of eight, got to work. Martin Newman, The Company Agency, then gave a masterclass on how the pupils should make their pitch. Martin, one of the founders of the Fairtrade movement, has worked with David Cameron and Vladimir Putin in the past and advised the troubled England 2018 World Cup team with their pitch. The pupils duly took note of his advice and the eight presenting teams were superb, coming up with a range of ideas from 'Back-on-track', an initiative for ex-convicts to 'Help For Homeless' who impressed by finding a way of involving big business with their enterprise. The winter workshops and social enterprise challenge and are now permanently fixed in the school diary and masterclasses in different subjects are also planned for the coming year.

Links within the community extend far beyond the classroom. Staff give up an extraordinary amount of their own time promoting Community Development in sport and coaching at grass roots level. Members of the PE department coach at Brighton RFC Junior section and pupils from local primary and secondary schools attend master classes throughout the year in a range of sports including Football, Rugby, Swimming, and Cricket. The College also provides its facilities and staff for three Primary Schools Football Tournaments and Brighton and Hove FC use the college facilities for Junior Development Courses for under privileged Children. The sports department are also committed to Sussex County Cricket Club Development with Sussex Emerging Player Program, Sussex Women's Cricket Association Junior and Senior Sections regularly benefiting from College Facilities. This summer, Twenty four of the country's most promising young female players also took their first steps to becoming England cricketers at the Junior Super 2s held at Brighton College. The youngsters, who were recommended by their counties after good performances in age group cricket, spent three days at the college where their time was split between matches and educational workshops as part of the first stage in the performance pathway for girls.