Dear OFS Community,
This time last year I invited the school to think of a story that would be worth telling across our community. Ideally, the story would be personal and about a child who was fighting for something that we might all take for granted. I received some stunning letters but one really stood out.
Vayun introduced us to Aaran, his cousin, who was born on 9th July that year. Unfortunately, Aaran was born with multiple heart conditions and had gone into surgery four times in less than 2 months. He had not been able to go home and his mum and dad had been living in the hospital throughout this hard time.
These were Vayun’s words...
For me, Aaran is the bravest person I know.
He always has a smile on his face and looking at him always makes me smile too.
Aaran is a fighter and so are the other children being treated by Evelina.
A year later, we are all delighted and thankful to hear that Aaran has been able to return home and whilst there are operations ahead, he has made amazing progress. This is down to the extraordinary work of the doctors and nurses at Evelina Children’s Hospital.
It was lovely that Evelina was able to send Hannah to Orley Farm to join us for the morning. She has been following Orley over the year and was so impressed with events that pupils, parents and teachers have held to bring us together as a community around Aaran.
Vayun spoke so well to the school and on behalf of Orley Farm, he presented Hannah with a cheque for a staggering £19,390.85! Hannah was also able to share a few stories about how this money can be used in the weeks and months ahead!
Counting the contributions to Evelina this year, over the past decade the Orley Farm community has raised over £100,000 – Go Team Orley!
Edge
We are well into our first round of Edge activities. The aromas that drift through the library as Yr8 pupils cook up a Thai salad make it pretty hard to concentrate, especially as it’s past midday - I certainly find my stomach rumbling!
I dropped into domestic skills and found the stillness and absolute concentration quite extraordinary – threading a needle is past the abilities of my eyesight but I was so impressed with the stitches being created. The big debate was whether to double thread or not...!
And the theme of problem solving continued outside the tipi as Yr5 learnt to remove an inner tube and then reassemble a bike tyre. I have to say, Edge provides so much more than just life skills – the collaborations are fantastic...
Headmaster's Commendation
Congratulations to Rhys Hirani who produced a brilliant piece of creative prep which has clearly shown initiative, creativity & ambition. As part of his studies around cells & organisation, Rhys created a model of a model of a cell, by baking a delicious cake which has been decorated with edible features that reflected all the relevant cell organelles he has learnt about in the past weeks – I’m not sure how Rhys avoided the temptation to eat his homework!?!
The power of a story told through the words of a pupil made £19,390.85 of difference as this community came together for so many events, big and small, and I count myself to be extremely fortunate to live and work in this community. Well done Vayun, you should be very proud of all that has come from the past 365 days...
Tim Calvey