Community Links & Voluntary Service

Over the past few years the school has developed a useful range of links with our local authority Reigate and Banstead Borough Council.

  • We have been invited annually to visit the Mayor at the Town Hall. Pupils have been treated to a tour of the historic Town Hall building, including the Old Council Chamber and Mayor’s Parlour, with an insight into what the Council and, in particular, the Mayor actually do.
  • We have sent representatives to take part in the annual Local Democracy Day Question Time event at the Town Hall. Pupils have the opportunity to put searching questions to councillors and representatives from the police, local press and other organisations.
  • We have elected representatives to the R&B Youth Council, one Dunottar girl being elected chair of the Council and another being the “whistleblower” who leaked the spendthrift ways of the county youth councillors! Two of the main achievements of the Youth Council have been the provision of facilities for young people in the re-development of Priory Park and the, regrettably short-lived, Youth Café in Reigate.
  • Representatives from the school have been invited to the annual Holocaust Day Memorial Day events. On two occasions school choirs have provided music for the event and sixth form students who have taken part in the annual visit to Auschwitz have been invited to speak about their experiences.

For the last two years Community Voluntary Service has been an enrichment option for girls in the sixth form. A number of students have volunteered each week at local charity shops but some are involved in a wide variety of other projects. Examples include:

  • Radio Redhill – East Surrey Hospital Radio
  • Assisting at a local nursing home for the elderly
  • Leading Brownie or Rainbows groups
  • Orbitshed – a theatre group where able-bodied and disabled young people work together
  • Reigate Conservation Volunteers
  • A telephone counselling service for young people with eating disorders
  • Fundraising project for St Catherine’s Hospice in Crawley
  • Sports coaching for disabled young people at the YMCA