Caring for the Elderly
Equipped to Serve
At CFS we are making a significant impact on our local and wider community. Our unique Equipped to Serve programme (ETS) ensures that all Y9 to Y11 pupils spend half a day every week gaining the knowledge, skills and experience they need to serve Christ and the world in which they live enabling us to fulfil our distinctive school mission. Devoting significant curriculum time to ETS was a leap of faith for us four years ago. It has been enthusiastically embraced by parents and recognised by inspectors as an important contributor to our pupils’ outstanding spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. It is an excellent opportunity to see the outworking of the young people’s Christian faith in the world.
Caring for the Elderly
As part of our programme of social engagement we have developed strong links with Kingswood Manor Care Home. Our pupils befriend elderly residents and take part in reminiscence sessions as well as singing, playing games and even painting nails! They have created life books and art based objects to celebrate the lives of our elderly friends in the care home and the community. Our pupils aim to offer friendship and fellowship, being Christ in the community to those who are lonely and disregarded by society.
A pupil who recently left CFS, wrote to say: “Sadly, today I attended the funeral of . . . the man I did my memory project for. His granddaughters approached me and . . . told me how much the book meant to them and how they had been reading it this morning . . . . I feel so blessed to have been able to make something meaningful that the family can use to look back on [his] life. Thank you for the opportunity!” Y10 have put together an interactive exhibition about the lives of the residents during the war years. The exhibition has been shared with the residents’ families, as well as a local primary school. The Y6 teacher from Springwood Heath Primary School, wrote:
“I wanted to . . . thank you and your wonderful class for coming to visit us and share your work. The children were buzzing once you had left. They were asking if you would come back and work with us again. I really can't thank you enough.”
In November 2017, our partnership with Kingswood Manor culminated in the release of our Christmas single – “It’s more than ...” Encouraged and supported by the care home’s regional manager, our Y11 students composed the music and worked with residents to write lyrics capturing the memories of the older generation and the experiences of You can listen to it here:
The highlight of the project was our day at the Parr Street Recording Studios when a choir of eight elderly residents, the CFS band and choir, plus a children’s choir from Springwood Heath Primary School, joined together to record our single. The song was then used to raise £700 for two homeless charities.