Students continue volunteering beyond Trinity Sixth Form Diploma

When Trinity School Lower Sixth students Rosie and Sophie completed their volunteering placement at Whitgift House as part of the Sixth Form Diploma, they made a real connection with the residents there. So when they were invited back to help at the care home’s summer garden party, they were delighted to give up more of their own time to support the event.

Here’s their account of the experience:

“We worked with Whitgift House through the Sixth Form volunteering programme, visiting every Tuesday afternoon over five weeks for a couple of hours.

We were invited by the care home to help with their garden party and the activities throughout the day, separate from our previously organised volunteering. We had really enjoyed activities such as taking part in the play Oliver Twist and playing croquet with the residents, so we were enthusiastic to contribute more of our efforts in our spare time.

At the summer party, we went round to the residents and their families encouraging them to take part in the activities we had been given. Rosie was asking residents to guess when a stuffed teddy was born, which proved particularly popular, while Sophie was in charge of the sweet jar competition, where people had to guess how many sweets it contained to win it. Both activities cost £1 to enter and we raised lots of money for the care home.

This experience increased our confidence in speaking to new people and encouraging them to take part in our activities. Our favourite part was seeing the excitement of the raffle winners when we picked their numbers out of the box.

It was a lovely experience because we recognised some of the faces we had encountered during our weekly visits, and it was nice to catch up with them.

We think projects like this are important because they make you more open-minded by seeing the lives of different people and hearing about their experiences. They also make you more down to earth because you see the struggles of others and how they deal with them positively.

Rosie’s main takeaway was seeing how much the staff appreciated the help from younger people. Sophie found that giving up your time to others is never a waste because both the volunteer and the people receiving the help benefit in different ways.

The experience also reinforced our future aspirations. Sophie found it interesting to see how the carers adapted their approach to each individual, strengthening her interest in studying psychology. Rosie, who hopes to study medicine, was inspired by the communication between residents and staff, and the way those relationships helped residents feel comfortable in their environment.

Overall, we are both glad to have had this experience because it has changed our perspective on how the care system supports older people.”

We are incredibly grateful to Whitgift House for providing such meaningful opportunities for our students, and proud of Rosie and Sophie for choosing to continue making a difference beyond their Sixth Form Diploma volunteering.