Community Service

Canford regards links with and service in the community as a natural dimension of learning.  The sense of giving and co-operative achievement on which boarding school life is built here is extended beyond the school gates.

Within Canford's community service programme, most Sixth Formers will be engaged at some point or other with voluntary work on a Monday afternoon.  The school has many long standing links with voluntary projects in the local community.  These local partnerships range from helping at local primary schools to working with handicapped adults in a day centre.

Younger pupils who do not join the CCF are involved in conservation activities either on the school site or in conjunction with the Dorset Wildlife Trust, for example on Brownsea Island, or with the local authority.  Twice a year, on Enterprise Day, pupils are able to devote a whole day to their particular voluntary project.

Current links

• Helping in classrooms at 8 different local first schools
• Science lesson support at Merley First School
• Language support lessons at Colehill First School
• Classroom help at 3 local special schools
• Running drama workshops for pupils with special needs from Beaucroft School using the Layard Theatre
• Teaching swimming in the Canford pool to pupils from Hampreston First School
• Running activities for pupils with physical handicaps from Langside School
• Working in a number of local charity shops
• Helping at a sheltered workplace, the Cherry Tree Nursery
• Visiting day patients at the Lewis Manning hospice
• Community Sports Award leaders in local sport
• Helping at an adult day centre for the disabled (Sea View Centre)
• Visiting patients with Alzheimer’s at Alderney Hospital
• Musical concerts at various residential and day centres
• Visiting the elderly in their homes
• Helping build a sensory garden at a local day centre (Sea View Centre)
• Voluntary work in the gardens of the National Trust at Kingston Lacy