Once again this year, the Harrodian community has turned the run up to Christmas into a giving season with a series of generous charity initatives
Our dynamic Sixth Formers have been at the heart of fundraising activities. They were busy yesterday making arrangements to take a generous donation to the Roehampton Community Box which was organised with the help pf Mr Don. This contribution is part a Christmas campaign that has been gathering momentum with the end of term approaching.
Among the initiatives taking place in the final weeks of term, as illustrated in the photographs below, was our 9s (Year 5) cake sale held as part of a Macmillan Coffee Morning at the Castelnau Community Centre. Organised by Head of Year Jenny Eade, the event was designed to show the children what the Harrodian pillar of 'compassion' can mean in real life. Pupils baked or brought in a variety of treats, which they sold in the centre’s foyer, successfully raising £322 in support of the Macmillan Cancer Support charity.
Meanwhile, pupils in the 14s and 15s (Years 10 and 11) organised a winter coat collection for children, an initiative coordinated by Harrodian’s Senior School Office that concluded this week. Donations were gathered on behalf of Growbaby Sutton, a charity providing pre-loved, good-quality clothing and equipment for children in need aged 0 to 5 years. Yesterday, a minibus full of pupils and coats delivered the collection to the charity. This successful initiative followed in the wake a similar local coat drive in Barnes, organised by our Friends of Harrodian and sponsored by Chestertons in November, to which Harrodian contributed the lion’s share of the 250 winter coats collected.
Inevitably the efforts of the Friends of Harrodian have also played their usual huge part in charity efforts at the end of 2025. Last week's Christmas Fair raised its biggest charity contribution ever thanks in part to the extraordinary generosity of a parent donation. The resulting total of £16,883.00 was raised and will be split between three charities: Rackets Cubed, Santa's Shoebox and DKMS.
In a separate charity drive at the Fair, four 12s girls (Anna M, Olivia T, Chloe C and Grace R) ran an innovative stall which involved selling books with wrapping that hid the titles, encouraging visitors to explore new reading choices. Their clever idea raised nearly £350 for the Oxfam Women's Rights charity. The Fair was also the setting for crepe and sweet stalls manned by pupils raising funds for their Summer 2026 Camps International trip to Borneo, an expedition supporting Orangutan Conservation and Protection and local community projects in the region.
Harrodian's Pre-Prep and the parents have also been playing an active part in charity fundraising this term. A collection at the Pre Prep Christmas Show for the Mayhew Trust who visited the Pre Prep for an assembly earlier in the term raised nearly £400 and the youngsters (including Prep pupils) contributed by enthusiastically joining in our Christmas Jumper Day collection for Save the Children on the penultimate day of term, with our Seniors wearing theirs on the last day.
