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Thinking outside the 'Royal' box!

Churton school pupils

Upon taking up this post, the number on roll was just 19; we had to start thinking of some innovative ways to bring people back to this special little school. We ran open afternoons, held community events and worked alongside local businesses as well as MP, Claire Perry, to encourage further interest. Slowly but surely, people began to visit.

By the Christmas term, the NOR had risen to 23. Whilst teaching a persuasive writing unit with my KS2 children, we began to consider how we could put our new found skills to good use. One child suggested we wrote to someone famous as if they came to our school, this might encourage others to attend! After some quite detailed discussion, we agreed that the future King of England would be the ideal pupil to come to our school. Therefore the children set about writing their own interpretations of a persuasive letter, aiming to persuade the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge that Prince George should be enrolled at Chirton.

We sent these off in a special book and went off to enjoy our Christmas holiday in the knowledge that we had learnt a number of new skills and put them to good use. 

It wasn’t until we returned from our half term break in February 2014 that our attention was drawn back to our persuasive writing. A large envelope arrived on my desk containing not one letter, but a personalised reply to each and every child that had originally written to the Royal couple. They also contained a beautiful photograph of Prince George and his parents that the children could treasure. We contacted the local Gazette to see if they might like to print this story as we were still trying to keep the progress of Chirton in the public eye. They made this happen and we felt delighted that the children’s hard work had been celebrated. Unbeknown to us, a number of the local and national press had picked up our story and wanted to know more and more! By the following week, we had been on the local BBC news, on the front of the Sunday Express, inside Hello! Magazine, in The Times, on BBC Wiltshire and Heart FM to name but a few! We also received a visit from Royal photographer, David Hartley and took part in an exciting photo-shoot with The Daily Mail! Everyone was suddenly talking about our little school for all the right reasons and it gave everyone in the school community a much deserved and well needed boost.

Following on from this, numbers continued to rise and in September 2014 we had 45 children on roll. The local Gazette had heard about this and so printed the story and once again the national press became interested in us. We were suddenly thrust into the spotlight for a second time with our story being on the local ITV news and printed in Hello! Magazine, The Daily Express, The Daily Telegraph, The Western Daily Press and all across the world with our tale being published in Moscow, Canada and Australia!

Although it has been incredibly exciting for us all, we cannot put our growing success down to our Royal correspondence alone. Everyone has pulled together to build a thriving school community once again and whilst we are not naïve enough to not recognise there’s still some hard work to be done, this has certainly provided us with a great start and a springboard to a sustainable future. 

It is incredibly special to be part of something so rewarding. The children are thriving and hardly a week goes by where new families aren’t visiting our school.

The ‘Little School with a Big Heart’ is most definitely back on the map and the vision is now for a new building that contains a library and a hall; the children claim to know just the person to invite to open it!

Amy Bekker Wrench
Associate Headteacher/KS2 Teacher

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