A PRIMARY school headteacher will be jumping from an RAF aircraft on Easter Saturday to raise money for her school’s new classroom.
Brize Norton Primary School is looking to build a new mobile classroom and headteacher Anna Fairhurst will be doing her bit to see it built, and help the further growth of the school.
The cost of the new classroom is £86,000, with those costs so far covered.
A large portion of the funding came from the Oxford Diocesan Schools Trust, which gave £53,000 towards the costs.
A further £23,000 came from money saved from the school’s capital projects, in addition to £10,000 from the School Association.
However, the cost of fitting out the classroom is not yet covered.
For the new mobile classroom project to come to fruition, money is needed to kit out the classroom and replenish the school’s reserves.
This is where Mrs Fairhurst came in.
The headteacher, who has never done a parachute jump before, said: “I’m terrified but that’s precisely why I should do it.
“I don’t even know how high it is going to be.
“We try to do things differently here, so we always think creatively about how to raise money.
“There are quite a few of the parents who are involved with the RAF at Brize Norton so they’ve organised it for me.
“It started off as a joke with the vice chair of governors – who works at Brize and jumps out of planes with untested parachutes on a regular basis.”
Mrs Fairhurst, who has been the headteacher at the Station Road school for five and a half years, hopes that the parachute jump will provide a financial platform for the school moving forward.
The headteacher explained: “We are wanting to raise money for a new classroom.
“We’d like to have more space as plenty of parents want to send their children here and we will need some more space to accommodate them.
“There are currently 17 children in each year group, and we want to get that to 20 as it will bring us extra money and offer us the financial stability we need for the school to go forward.
“There are 121 children at the school at the moment so we are quite a little school.
“I’m aiming to raise £1,000. That’s a figure I’ve come up with, having already got £350.”
In total, there will be an increase in pupil numbers of 21 to 140.
This will give the school an estimated extra £51,000 to the school’s budget.
The new mobile classroom will be located in the area of the school’s playground behind the bike sheds.
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The building will be able to accommodate 30 children and will have its own power, heating, Wi-Fi and toilets.
To get the best out of the new mobile classroom, the school hopes to attract three more children into each year group.
A parent at the school, Sarah Smith, has two children and is looking forward to the parachute jump.
Mrs Smith said: “At the minute classes are quite mixed in terms of ages, so it will be really great to try and separate some of the age groups a bit more.
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“We’re trying to get some local businesses involved and raise awareness as plenty of fundraising is going on at the school.
“It’ such a nice thing to get the community involved in.”
In March 2013, the school became the first in Oxfordshire to get an outstanding rating under a new Ofsted regime introduced in September 2012.
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