Tonbridge named as Finalist for national award
Tonbridge has been named as a Finalist in the Independent Schools of the Year Awards 2020.
The school’s recognition comes in the category for ‘Community Outreach’. This assesses the various, innovative ways in which schools across the country have worked with their local communities over the past year.
The overall aim of these national awards, now in their third year, is to highlight the excellence of the student experience in independent schools. In 2020 a record a number of schools entered nominations, in 20 different categories.
A ‘virtual’ awards ceremony for all Finalists will take place on Thursday 8 October, during which the winners will be announced.
Tonbridge’s recent community activities include the setting up and running of a Primary Care Treatment Centre in March this year, which enabled the NHS to help save lives at the height of the Covid-19 crisis. At the same time, the school’s DT Department was among the first in the UK to manufacture more than 3,700 protective visors, using innovative laser-cutting technology. Visors were then distributed to key community outlets such as care homes, hospitals, GP surgeries and pharmacies.
Student-led activities at Tonbridge saw £113,000 raised for national and international charities last year, including £69,000 for Child Action Lanka, the school’s partner charity supporting street children in Sri Lanka. In a normal year, 24,000 hours of volunteering time is given by pupils and staff through long-established links with primary, secondary and special schools and community groups. Over 150 boys choose weekly volunteering over other activity options on offer.
Even in lockdown, students, staff and families from the Tonbridge School community across the globe came together in two major ‘remote’ fundraising events in May, supporting charities Porchlight and West Kent Mind.
In 2019 Tonbridge was named Independent Boys’ School of the Year in these same awards. Judges highlighted the school’s programme of co-curricular breadth and depth, its record of academic and pastoral excellence, and the ethos of ‘social responsibility’ and voluntary work across the school.
