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Anchor Fund

Welcome to The Anchor Fund, a charity established by St Clement Danes school over 20 years ago, with the aim of enhancing the experience of all our students as they journey from being small newbies in Year 7 through to the young, confident adults of Year 13.   

The Anchor Fund is a charity fund registered with and regulated by the Charity Commission. It operates primarily through regular parental contributions, although one-off payments are also possible. These parental donations, including any gift aid, create a collective pot of money which the school then distributes over the academic year to source additional, high quality resources which just would not be possible on state funds alone. Over the last 20 years, literally hundreds of thousands of pounds have been ploughed into the school, adding to the quality and richness of each student’s educational experience. 

Donating to The Anchor Fund is extremely straightforward and simple. We have three convenient ways in which donations can be made:

  1. Online via CAF. Please click here to go to the CAF Anchor Fund page.
  2. By a monthly standing order – please complete the standing order form below. Please also sign up for gift aid (we can reclaim 25p tax on every £1 donation made).
  3. Online via Parent Pay - donations can be made via Parent Pay when logged in to pay for trips or lunches.

It’s important that you know what the money is actually spent on. The Anchor Fund distributes its funds in three main ways. 

Firstly, there are many, many smaller projects which benefit individual faculties. We can, and do, buy extra texts books and resources so that students do not have to share or can be independent their learning. We have bought specialist equipment for virtually every faculty – photographic enlargers, digital cameras, electric ovens, brainbox kits, sports kit, sewing machines, chess sets, freezers and fridges, mannequins, visualisers, microscopes, handballs, ipads, keyboards.  The list is endless and varied beyond imagination. Consequently, your child has the best opportunity to experience every subject fully and for themselves with the best equipment.

The Anchor Fund also supports whole school projects such as the Literacy Agenda initiative and SEN provision.  It has bought furnishings for the Well-being Room; it has funded the establishment of the gardening club and purchased staging for whole school performances.

Secondly, the Anchor Fund, at times in collaboration with the Parents’ Association, can enable larger projects to proceed. Recent examples of successes are the fantastic sound and lighting system in the Barbirolli Hall and the fitness equipment for the gym. Without the Anchor Fund, these projects would not have taken place.

Finally, the Anchor Fund can also seed fund major projects by committing a percentage of the budget for a bid so that an application for Government funding can be successfully submitted. The recent development of the new All Weather Grass pitch is an excellent example of this.

The Anchor Fund is a very straightforward and easy way for parents to actively support their child’s experience at St Clement Danes School. By contributing just a few pounds every month you can be assured that you are effectively supporting the school as it strives to provide the best resources and opportunities for all our students.

It may surprise you that a regular amount, of just a few pounds a month, can make such a tremendous difference to the quality of your child’s education. But it is true as all those regular, individual amounts add up, creating a healthy, flourishing fund. And we continue to be truly grateful to the many generous parents who donate in some way to the fund.

So, if your child loves to play on the Astroturf or is able to take a maths book home rather than only sharing in school or if your child loves to access a keyboard in Music or is inspired by trying a science experiment with great equipment, it might just be the Anchor Fund which has enabled that to happen. And all for the price of a weekly takeaway coffee and sandwich!

Please join us by contributing to the Anchor Fund. In recent years, the state secondary educational system has increasingly become under significant financial pressure. St Clement Danes, like all other schools, has strongly felt the impact of these pressures, so now more than ever, any parental contribution is increasingly important and valuable. Your contribution will make a direct difference.

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