Charitable Activities

A huge variety of fundraising events take place at the School each year, many instigated and run by the pupils themselves. Pupils are also responsible for selecting the main school charity each year, with a short list of charities put together by pupil charity representatives that the whole school then votes on to select.

For the last two years we have supported Macmillan Cancer Support and Cancer Research UK, raising over £30,000. Some of the many highlights include KES Aid Weeks, large team entries for both the Bristol and Bath half marathons and Race for Life events, and not to forget Mr and Mrs Bougeards’ triumph of the 500-mile Camino di Santiago.  

For the academic year 2018/19, the KES community elected Off the Record (OTR) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) as our School charities. Off the Record is a local charity which promotes the emotional health and wellbeing of young people. It provides free, confidential advice, support and counselling to people between the ages of 10 and 25 who live in the Bath and North East Somerset area. As well as providing much-needed financial support for this invaluable charity, we hope that we can work together with OTR to raise awareness of some of the issues with which some of our own pupils can struggle with.  

The WWF is the world’s leading independent conservation organisation. Their work spans many projects aiming to tackle the impact of climate change and human activity. At a time when the health of our planet seems so fragile, it does not come as a surprise that members of the KES community felt that this is a worthwhile cause to support. 

The current group of Charity Year Reps are busy organising wonderful and wild fundraising events! We hope that this year will prove to be another successful charitable endeavour.

Links with Moving Mountains

Over the past 10 years, KES has developed a close relationship with the international charity, Moving Mountains and its sister organisation, Adventure Alternative.

Building on the success of four previous trips to Wagwer Secondary School in Western Kenya, a group of 38 pupils and six staff embarked on a new adventure to Tanzania in 2018. The group spent ten days at Ng’aroni Primary School, a rural school on the lower slopes of Kilimanjaro, where they helped to build a new classroom as well as decorated others. The team had worked hard to fundraise nearly £12,000 for this building project, so it was very rewarding for them to see the new classroom taking shape. They also had the opportunity to teach lessons to pupils at another nearby primary school, to explore the local countryside and immerse themselves fully in the local community. They spent an additional three days climbing Africa’s third highest mountain, Mt Meru (4,566m) – an overwhelming achievement for all involved.

Community Service

Community service is an important part of school life and our senior pupils are engaged in a wide variety of activities across Bath and the local area. Helping others is a valuable experience for our pupils and their contributions are greatly valued by our partner institutions.

Links with the community are numerous.

ISI Report 2015

Every Thursday afternoon, members of the Sixth Form volunteer at a variety of local organisations, including local primary schools, homes for the elderly, and the Royal United Hospital (RUH). Activities include helping in classrooms, serving refreshments on hospital wards and entertaining or talking to residents.  

Our Community Links Include:

• The Margaret Coates Unit for Autistic Children
• The RUH
• Peggy Dodd Centre
• Bathampton Junior School
• Combe Down Primary School
• Widcombe Infant School
• Bridgemead Care Home
• King Edward’s Junior School
• Bathwick St Mary’s Primary School