At Fortismere we believe in creating opportunities for our students. This involves offering an exciting range of curriculum enrichment and extracurricular activities that gives students who attend our school a fantastic experience.
Unfortunately, our current mini buses are not compliant with UlEZ which means we need to buy new ones.
In Haringey we are the biggest provider of the Duke of Edinburgh award with over 100 students every year taking part in it, despite being a non-fee paying state school. We organise the trips “in house” in order to ensure the trips are financially accessible by all and this is demonstrated in the numbers of students we have enrolling and successfully completing the award. Organising the trip ourselves means that we rely heavily on the minibuses for practice expeditions, assessed expeditions and to offer volunteering opportunities.
In the curriculum we run Science, STEM, drama and PE trips among others for students to supplement the curriculum, get students engaged and motivated in their learning and to inspire students to have high aspirations. These trips are often only possible as a result of using our minibuses to make the visits cost and time effective. As a result we have significantly increased the number of girls we have involved in STEM which is part of a national strategy, in addition to increasing participation in sporting events for both girls and boys across the different year groups.
The minibuses are also used extensively for whole school events such as Fortitude, Fireworks night and events aimed at celebrating success. This also extends to the Year 11 Celebration Prom which is a huge event attended by the entire year group. Every year we have year trips to reward students who have excelled in terms of effort, attendance, attainment and for representing our Fortismere 4. The minibuses help us to provide these opportunities and to ensure that all students can attend; including students on FSM who are offered a funded place.
The languages department also uses the minibuses during the French, Spanish and Mandarin exchanges and they are often used to transport not only our students but students and staff from visiting countries. At these times the buses are a representation of our school.
I cannot emphasise enough how important the school mini buses are to the PE Department and to the students at Fortismere School.
The number of opportunities that are available due to the convenience of being able to travel by our own buses are immense. This year alone, since September, we have attended 125 fixtures all over Haringey, Middlesex and London. Football, basketball, swimming, table tennis, netball, hockey, volleyball, basketball, badminton, indoor athletics, trampolining, cross country and we haven't reached the summer term yet. We use the buses for our GCSE PE exam - this Friday our students are going to Hemel Hempstead for their ski moderation and to Park Road for their swimming moderation.
We use our buses to take the students on other trips - we are currently planning a trip to watch a Super League Netball Match at the Copper Box in June for 30 students. We have been to Lords to watch a one day cricket event and to Wembley to watch an England Ladies’ football match.
Recently both buses have been out nearly every night to various schools: Monday Year 9/10 footballing Rectory Park in Ruislip, Tuesday Year 9 basketball to Heartlands School and Year 7/8 girls football at Highgate Wood School. Wednesday we went to Mixed hockey Highgate School Thursday, Year 7/8 Netball at East Barnet School and Year 9 boys football to Highgate wood School. Friday we took Year 9 Leaders to APS.
Without the buses the lives of the students and the opportunities we are able to give them would change dramatically. They provide students with the experience of winning (and sometimes losing!), the taking part, the teamwork, the camaraderie, the friendships made, the social interaction, the experiences made, the sights seen, the people we meet and the school life we look back on in years to come. We would be so grateful if we could have some funding for new buses. They are invaluable to the whole school and our community.