Sherborne Schools are Finalists in BSA Awards 2020

Sherborne Girls and Sherborne School have been announced as Finalists in the Boarding Schools Association’s national annual awards.
The Schools’ conservation work to rewild areas of their campus across both sites, and their partnership with local state schools, has been selected for the ‘Best Community Work’ category.

In 2019 Sherborne Girls and Sherborne School were the first schools in the country to sign up to a new initiative launched by the conservation charity, Operation Future Hope (OFH). The Conservation School Award scheme aims to restore and rejuvenate biodiversity in school grounds and to encourage community partnership by sponsoring and working alongside a local state school. The resulting collaboration between Sherborne Girls and The Gryphon, and Sherborne School and King Arthur’s, shows environmental action is clearly a priority which the pupils are keen to drive forward. 

The aim is twofold: to educate young people about the devastating decline of nature and wildlife at a global scale, and for pupils to get involved in a practical, hands-on and sustainable way to create real change. 

Sherborne Girls and Sherborne School have been instrumental in encouraging other local schools to join the OFH initiative too.  The environmental impact has been gathering momentum resulting in a truly collaborative and synchronised approach to rewilding within the local community and beyond.  

Dr Ruth Sullivan, Headmistress at Sherborne Girls, said: 

“We are thrilled that our community conservation work has been recognised in this way by the BSA. We believe that the scheme has had a profoundly positive effect: it has embedded the ethics of conservation and it has motivated and empowered the pupils to take action. It also offers tangible physical and mental wellbeing benefits to everyone involved and is yet another example of Sherborne Girls and  Sherborne School working together in our unique ‘separate yet together’ offering.”