Fundraising

Welcome to the St Wilfrid’s Fundraising section of the website.

These pages are a way of informing and updating you of our fundraising efforts and how you can help us by various schemes we are launching now and in the future.

Firstly we would like to thank all parents, staff, students, local businesses and parishioners who have contributed to our fund thus far! We have had a really positive response to our fundraising and we hope this will inspire others to get involved too.

We we have now raised £462,863 so far with our fundraising efforts. This is £231,431.50 which we have raised that has now been matched by our benefactor.  We are continuing to approach Charitable Trust Funds and businesses to see if they will support our fund but we really need to look closer to home for funding. And remember not all of our fundraising ideas will actually cost you any money so please take a few moments to read through our Fundraising Pages and help us if you can!

We know there are many families and individuals who wish to help us realise our vision and we are truly overwhelmed by people’s support. Please do not hesitate to contact our Fundraiser, Sarah Gildea (s.gildea@stwilfrids.com) for any further information or if you have any ideas for fundraising.

Why Are We Fundraising?

In 2004 a DfEES grant was obtained to build a new school.   In order to meet the governor’s commitment, obligatory under the regulations for funding voluntarily aided Catholic schools, of over £2 million pounds, surplus (non playing field) land will be sold. 

Although the new school will be a superb resource there are government restrictions of the size and type of facilities which can be included.  A chapel and a centre to continue and develop our work with local businesses and the community will not be provided from the grant.  The governors, local parishes and the community have agreed to include, at their own cost, facilities which will place our faith at the forefront of the school.  The entrance to the school focuses on a chapel and a Partnership Learning Centre – a community conference space for the 21st century.

The Chapel

Just as the Catholic faith lies at the heart of our school’s ethos, so the chapel is a central feature of the new school build.  The chapel is the key to the design and stands as a visible symbol of the centrality of the Catholic faith to our daily life.

 The Chapel can accommodate up to 60 people - typically a class plus visiting parents and parishioners.  Prayer and liturgy are woven into the very fabric of daily life at St Wilfrid’s and the Chapel will provide a beautiful environment not only for school liturgies, but for the local community to meet together to join in worship with our staff and students.

Given the large number of pupils who wish to attend Mass on Holy Days of Obligation, whole-year Masses and Liturgies or Deanery and Diocesan gatherings, the seating capacity of the Chapel will, on occasions, be insufficient.  By removing the soundproof wall between the Chapel and the adjoining conference area a much larger Church space can be created.  The Chapel is designed to ensure that the altar, ambo and Blessed Sacrament are appropriately situated for use in both the Chapel and the extended Church, it will be possible for 150 people - for example, a whole year group - to come together for Mass or prayer.

Together with our local catholic communities, we need to raise the capital for this chapel and its fittings ourselves at a cost of £370,000.

The Partnership Learning Centre

Our vision for this learning space is to encourage and motivate learning in our students, staff and the wider community of Crawley.  We believe this to be an effective outreach of our Catholic understanding that ‘God wants the best for all’.  By using the educational process to cross cultural, religious and socio-economic divides we are committed in our desire to promote social cohesion.

Although the new school will be a superb resource there are government restrictions of the size and type of facilities which can be included.  A chapel and a centre to continue and develop our work with local businesses and the community will not be provided from the grant.  The governors, local parishes and the community have agreed therefore to include, at their own cost, facilities which will place our faith and our specialism at the forefront of the school.  The entrance to the school focuses on a chapel and a Partnership Learning Centre – a community classroom.

The PLC will enable the school to continue and develop its specialism providing an authentic business environment where local businesses will work together with the school to educate further generations and help skill the local community.   External and internal training opportunities for our own staff and those of the locality will take place in the PLC making it a training hub for teachers in West Sussex.  It will be a place where businesses can work with potential future employees whilst training their own staff.  We will explore with local business and our students, the principals of ethical trading, commerce and living and be able to do this in a dedicated and purpose built learning space.     

Our centre will focus on ethics and ethical living in local business and the community.  We will be inviting our catholic and our wider community to events such as “How to Live a more Ethical Life?” and are in the process of researching speakers for such events and courses. We will be inviting local businesses to benefit from the dialogue which takes place here focusing particularly on the ethics questions faced in the modern world. Our Head of Business Enterprise with Ethics, Mrs Jo Waddingham works closely with our curriculum leader of Social & Ethical Studies to ensure a coherent programme of study is developed in which all our specialism’s are met.

We currently run free Business Document and IT Workshops which are well attended and led by our staff.   With our student background being quite diverse in its ethnicity, as detailed above, we have set up an Entry Level English and we are in the process of introducing a Basic Numeracy course.  These courses will enable our students, their families and our ethnic community to improve their basic English Language and Numeracy skills.

When we named our facility the Partnership learning Centre we wished to stress the sense of partnership. In partnership with you, the local community and businesses we will be able to improve people’s lives. 

We need to raise the capital for our PLC and its fittings ourselves at a cost of £410,000.

 

What Can You Do To Help?

Fundraising Events