Wooden Spoon is all about supporting disadvantaged children and we welcome your help. Many primary, secondary schools and sixth form colleges throughout the UK and Ireland are already working with Spoon Schools. There are lots of ways in which you can help raise funds and contribute towards improving another child’s life.

ARE YOU AT SCHOOL and DO YOU WANT TO HELP OTHER CHILDREN and STIR SOME SMILES?

In this section you will find lots of interesting information on Wooden Spoon, how it was formed and what it does with the funds that you and others help to raise.

Latest News!

THE “BRUTON HAKA” RAISES MONEY FOR DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN
The students at Bruton School for Girls have written their own version of the famous New Zealand “Haka” and a performance of the “Bruton Haka” on the Shirts4Spoons National Charity Day contributed to the students raising over £400 for disadvantaged children.

Led by Head of Drama, Mr Al Duncan, the girls performed the “Bruton Haka” with gusto and their performance together with a mufti day and staff participation in a “Whose shirt is it anyway” performance meant that a cheque for £424.53 could be presented to Jai Purewal.

The “Bruton Haka”
Over the valley and far away
Is a team that can really play!
It's a team from a town called Bruton. Bruton!
With a hill really sunny to play on, play on.
We Challenge! Our Challenge,
Our Challenge to you is to
Follow the Gleam!
Hee!

Support Shirts4Spoon!
The Shirts4Spoon initiative ran on 5th October and was a huge success. The day was devised for pupils and staff to wear their favourite sports or bad taste shirt for the day, while making a donation to charity in the process. More than 120 schools, colleges and businesses took part in the ‘mufti day’ and over £50,000 is expected to have been raised. Jai Purewal, Spoon Education Coordinator and Jon Eagle, Shirts4Spoon Coordinator would like to thank everyone who pledged their support to Shirts4Spoon in this it’s first year.
“The response from schools, colleges and businesses around the UK an Ireland has been fantastic. We are pleased with
how this first year has gone and look forward to building the Shirts4Spoon programme into years two and three,” said Jai
Purewal. “I have been hearing stories of activities around Shirts4Spoon Day and am impressed with the inventiveness of individuals. At Wooden Spoon we like to put the fun into fundraising and stir lots of smiles in the process. Thank you very much indeed to everyone who has helped raise funds and for all her hard work,” added Jon Eagle.

Get your school involved in the 2008 Shirts4Spoon now. click here

How can my School/College Get Involved?
Although we are encouraging everyone to join us on the specofied date (2008 to be confirmed), if it doesn’t fit into the School calendar then Spoon is happy to organise Shirts4Spoon on another more convenient day.

King Henry VIII Coventry, have already done a mufti day this year, so instead of signing up for Shirts4Spoon, pupils and staff donated a regal £585.18 by buying Wooden Spoon wrist bands during form registration. Spoon’s Education Coordinator, Jai Purewal is a former pupil of the School and of course it was one of the first places he visited in his new role. “I addressed the school during an assembly and introduced the Shirts4Spoon initiative and other ways in which the school could help. It was quite surreal being on the stage rather than sitting down with the rest of the Pupils.”

It is important to emphasise that money raised by the schools goes to support disadvantaged children in the local area and doesn’t get thrown into a central pot. The cheque for nearly £600 from King Henry VIII school will go towards a much needed specialist Toy Library facility at Exhall Grange School and Science College part of a boarder £7 million redevelopment that Spoon is supporting in the region.

Exhall Grange School and Science College caters for children aged 2 to 19 years with a wide range of special educational needs including visual impairment, physical disability, complex medical needs, communication, emotional and behavioural difficulties and children on the autistic spectrum. The Toy Library is designed to enable hundreds of children, parents and professionals to borrow toys and specialist equipment to support the development of play and social skills.

Mary Tynan, Charities Co-ordinator at King Henry VIII commented, "The staff and pupils are only too happy to do our bit to support such a worthy and local cause. We wish the Wooden Spoon and Exhall Grange all the very best in achieving their target of £30,000 and look forward to visiting the facility once it is completed."

As is the case with many schools, King Henry’s support a number of different charitable causes each year and had already committed to a number of mufti days for the next academic term so Spoon came up with other ideas that might appeal to the pupils. This is a perfect example of Spoon’s ability to adapt to the different situation at each School, College or University. No two institutions are run in the same way and we are happy to tailor a fundraising initiative to fit. With the increased profile of citizenship within schools there are important lessons to learn about supporting others less fortunate than ourselves.

Jai has visited numerous junior and senior schools, colleges, prep schools and universities in the last three months. Jai and Regional Committee members have been happy to spend time visiting schools and giving presentations in assemblies or to the charitable committees, school bodies or even directly to the Head Teachers. In some cases Schools are happy to sign up instantly and in others the calendar for charity support can be booked up years in advance and therefore Spoon joins a list for consideration for the future. In all cases Spoon is able to raise its profile and it is hoped that the benefits of this will come in the future.

There are of course those that can’t wait to join in the fundraising on 5th October and have already started supporting Spoon.
Kings of Wessex in Cheddar included Spoon as one of their Charities to be supported from their week-long charity event which included crazy activities such as jelly wrestling, egg throwing and a battle of the bands competition. Former bath and England star, Gareth Chilcott, the Honorary President of Spoon Somerset attended the presentation of the cheque to Spoon.

Spoon really hopes that schools around the country will get on board either for Shirts4Spoon on 5th October or to fundraise in another way to help support children who are not as fortunate as themselves.

Please do speak to your contacts within the Education Sector to see how together we can work to build on Wooden Spoon’s ability to help disadvantaged children and young people in UK and Ireland.

Playing for success
Wooden Spoon has for some time been supporting the Playing for Success (PfS) scheme introduced by the Department for Education and Skills. This relationship is now set to flourish thanks to Spoon’s work in the UK and Irish education sector. Jai Purewal reports on a relationship to be proud of.

You are forgiven if you have not heard of PfS before, it may only be those regions with a Premier Rugby Club that know about PfS but for some time, Wooden Spoon has been instrumental in the development of PfS in rugby across the UK and has funded Seven centres around the
country: Featherstone Rovers, Hull Kingston Rovers, Wakefield Trinity Wildcats (all Rugby League), Worcester Warriors, Penzance Pirates, Gloucester RFC and Bath RFC (all Rugby Union).

What is Playing for Success (PfS)?
PfS is a partnership between the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), local authorities and a broad range of sports. Partners include clubs from the FA Premier League and Football Leagues, Rugby Union and League, cricket, basketball, hockey, ice hockey, gymnastics and tennis. In all 15 different sports are represented in PfS.

Through PfS, the DfES and partners are establishing study support centres within sports clubs. Centres are vibrant, exciting and stimulating places for young people to learn.
 Students at the centres get up to speed on the key skills of literacy, numeracy and ICT- the foundation stones of their education. 
Over the last 10 years, tens of thousands of children have come out of centres’ doors with improved skills, motivation and self- esteem, giving them a real boost and, in many cases, a new start on which they can build back at school. The centres run out of school hours courses and cater for mainly 10 to 14 year olds who are at risk of underachieving, using the stimulus of sport to help motivate them.

Benefits to Spoon
Broadly speaking the PfS relationship raises the profile of Spoon within the host clubs and our association with a scheme that is widely regarded as a complete success is important. 
Today’s school children are Spoon’s members of the future. Anything that can get Spoon in front of pupils while they are enjoying themselves and having fun can only benefit Spoon in the long run.

John Bedford, Centre Manager at the Leeds Rhinos/Carnegie Learning Centre outlines how PfS and Wooden Spoon’s relationship is working in the North of England:
“The Leeds Rhinos/Carnegie Learning Centre is proud of its relationship with Wooden Spoon. We recognise the great work Wooden Spoon has done for the benefit of young people in the Yorkshire region. We particularly recognise the help given to the Learning Centres at Featherstone Rovers, Wakefield Trinity Wildcats and Hull Kingston Rovers. Our ‘Playing for Success’ centre has similar aims to Wooden Spoon and we both share the ‘giving’ and ‘caring’ ethos.
 At Leeds Rhinos/Carnegie we have a the theme of ‘Who Needs Our Help?’ in our ten-week Playing for Success ‘out of school hours’ 
learning programme. This fits in well with the ethos of Wooden Spoon whose sole purpose is to support disadvantaged children and young people in UK and Ireland.

The Way Forward
Building on this fantastic relationship and as part of SpoonEducation we are looking to increase Spoon’s profile both within the centres (150 operational around the country) and also in their feeder schools and colleges.

In the coming weeks PfS and Spoon will meet to construct a learning resource that focuses on notions of citizenship and the importance of helping others (as well as the core skills of numeracy literacy and ICT) using case studies based on Wooden Spoon. The intention is to roll out this learning resource at PfS centres based at rugby clubs (Union or League) and latterly at all centres regardless of what sport they are associated with. It is hoped that having been introduced to Spoon, pupils will return to their schools and want to raise money for Spoon or at least be aware of Spoon when we ask for their support.

Regional Coordinator, Tony Richards and Jai attended the PfS Annual Conference at Stratford Upon Avon and both independently commented on how similar PfS and Wooden Spoon are in terms of the positive atmosphere that is created by the people involved. Both organisations have grown rapidly in recent years and will benefit from an increased profile within the education sector. Everything is in place to push this relationship forward and in doing so, raise Spoon’s profile and potential income from the UK and Irish educational sector.

Please ask a teacher if you would like to help. Please click here. 

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