St Mark’s Partnership

Roedean has worked closely with St Mark’s Primary School in Brighton since 2016, in a partnership of mutual benefit in a range of different ways, including weekly enrichment at Roedean, lunchtime activities every Wednesday, the building of a library from scratch, and a plethora of ad hoc activities, such as a Samba workshop and attendance at theatre productions. 

Each of the Year 4-6 cohorts comes to Roedean on Thursdays for a term each of sporting and academic enrichment, after which they stay for lunch. They enjoy our sporting facilities, as well as discrete academic lessons, taught by Roedean staff, which are designed to spark the pupils’ curiosity.

Year 9 students travel to St Mark’s once a week to act as Reading Buddies, listening to the children read in a safe and supportive environment. At the same time, pupils for whom English is not their first language are paired where possible with Language Buddies of the same background from Roedean, giving them a chance to chat in their own language and help with any communication issues.

“It’s inspirational and enjoyable to support young children who need our help. It has made me think differently about how I interact with young people.”

— Isla (Yr9) —

Roedean Academy

Since 2018, the Roedean Academy has brought together over 500 like-minded talented academics in Year 10 from six local state schools and Roedean. Over six weeks, students travel to the School on a weekly basis to join with Roedean girls for an enrichment programme. In each session, the students have a choice of 5-6 supra-curricular modules, offered by Roedean staff, including topics about languages, science, classics, history, and politics.

Community Action Plan (CAP)

Every student in Year 12 takes part in Roedean’s Community Action Programme on Wednesday afternoons. Not only does this help them to develop skills which will be valuable beyond School, but it ensures that our students are fully embedded in the local community, doing what they can to effect positive change.

So that the programme can have the greatest impact, there are twelve activities with a range of partners, from which the students can choose the one which most suits their interests and skills. Examples include:

• BSL in the Community
• Junior Roedean Academy
• Community Cooking
• Raystede Centre for Animal Welfare
• The Somerset Centre

Junior Roedean Academy

The Junior Roedean Academy is one of the strands within CAP, and it has been running for 3 years. It brings 140 children from three or four local state primaries to Roedean for 90 minutes of academic enrichment on Wednesdays for an 8-week block.

The Year 12 watch and learn how to teach a large class of primary children, and then take over the teaching themselves, sharing their passions with the children – the experience is an exciting learning opportunity for both parties!

“Pupils of all ages are socially aware, working effectively with others to solve problems and achieve common goals.”

— ISI 2021 —

Charity Overview

The Roedean community undertakes numerous activities to raise funds for causes, with each year group having a chosen charity. This year these charities  include: 

We also send food each week to our local partner charity, Off the Fence, which works with the homeless in Brighton.

Ukrainian Refugee Scholarships at Roedean

In response to the crisis, Roedean was keen to support refugees from Ukraine and 9 students who are living with host families locally have been awarded day places with 110% funding over two years.