How we work with our Community

We strive to be a good neighbour to our local community and regularly donate and share our facilities and resources with local charities and organisations at no cost.

In addition, our sports facilities are used by over a thousand adults and children every week for swimming classes, netball and hockey training, yoga, Korfball and trampolining, to name only a few.

Collection for Ukrainian Refugees

We were absolutely overwhelmed by the generosity of our community in our appeal for items to support Ukrainian refugees displaced by conflict. We collected and sorted warm clothing, medical supplies, baby supplies, toiletries, sanitary items and food which were then transported to the Poland/Ukraine border. Our heartfelt thanks for this humbling display of generosity.

Donations for Ukrainian Refugees

Wanstor Community Tree Donation

Wanstor have donated fifty trees to Royal Russell School in Croydon as part of their corporate social responsibility programme. The trees have been planted across the grounds of Royal Russell, creating many peaceful areas for reflection for the community.

Neil Cufley, Director of Operations and Finance at Royal Russell School said “we are very grateful to Wanstor for thinking of us with this incredibly generous gift. The trees will be an enduring legacy here at the School and we know they will be enjoyed by generations of children on their educational journey”.

Peter Lukes, Managing Director of Wanstor said “our business is passionate about sustainability and want to be involved in projects that help to drive this. We started donating and planting trees three years ago to help climate change, and this year we’re thrilled to donate 50 trees to Royal Russell School. It’s great to be able to work together on this initiative together and we hope it contributes to a tranquil environment for the students and staff alike.”

Croydon Business Resilience Awards 2021

Croydon Neighbourhood Watch

Croydon Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association is a charity that brings together communities of all ages, faiths and backgrounds to help prevent crime and is the largest neighbourhood watch association in London.

Royal Russell sponsored their lunch and hosted their Annual AGM and Conference in the Auditorium.

The Annual Conference guest speakers included 2 Borough Commanders, Trading Standards, a Counter Terrorism expert and Council / GLA representatives.

Fun challenges for YOU London

Young people from the borough’s uniformed youth groups battled it out to gain top place in Croydon’s YOU Challenge (Youth Organisations in Uniform).

Over eighty representatives and their volunteer adult leaders gathered at Royal Russell School for a series of challenges, tests, tasks and most of all fun.

The challenges included a climbing wall, archery, donning a Firefighters gear, team building tasks, searching their own ‘scene of crime’ forensics exercise, making paper aeroplanes that fly, and frisbee golf.

The eight mixed teams including the Fire Cadets, Combined Cadet Force, Scouts, Air Cadets, Volunteer Police Cadets, Girl Guides, Girls’ Brigade, Boys’ Brigade and Croydon youth council came together at the request of Representative Deputy Lieutenant Colonel Ian McRobbie OBE TD DL, who heads the Croydon Youth Organisations in Uniform partnership.

Before the prize giving the hungry teams were fed with a very welcome barbecue prepared by the school’s caterers.

Joining Colonel Ian McRobbie special visitors to the event were Councillors John Wentworth, Sara Bashford and Simon Brew who were able to see and happily take part in some the activities. They all expressed their thanks to the adults who had made possible this exciting example of youth groups working collaboratively.

With smiles all round and accompanied by Mr Chris Hutchinson, Colonel Ian McRobbie made the final award presentations to the winning team which had gained most points from the challenges.

Weekend for Croydon Scouting

Over 500 Cubs Scouts, 200 adults and Leaders and another 75 base instructors participated in an activity weekend to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Cub Scouts.

The event was held at Frylands Wood Scout Outdoor Centre in Croydon and the event was hosted, organised and run by Croydon Scouting.

Royal Russell supplied the minibuses and staff to transport the Scouts to Frylands Wood.

Croydon Performing Arts Festival

Partnership with Virusend

We are arming staff with bottles of Virusend – a spray which kills all strains of the coronavirus, to 99.99% efficacy – to ensure both the students and staff receive the highest levels of protection possible when they re-enter classrooms – alongside a lateral flow on-site testing centre.

The project will not only protect our 1100 pupils. Together with Virusend we will donate the anti viral spray to thousands of pupils and their families across 12 other schools in the area, as part of the Rowdown Inspire to Aspire Foundation.

School pupils and staff will now be receiving the same ‘military grade’ disinfectant spray as military personnel across the country. 50,000+ bottles have already been deployed to troops on the frontline fight against the virus – protecting them at testing and vaccination centres throughout the UK and Northern Ireland.

Chris Hutchinson, Headmaster at the Royal Russell School said: ‘Our team has been working around the clock to get the school ready for our community to return this week. The opportunity to add this military grade level of protection alongside our testing facilities and other Covid-secure measures gives us increased confidence for a safe return to learning in person. The work we do in our local community is incredibly important to us and we were keen to ensure as many pupils and staff in the area can benefit from this technology as possible. We are delighted that 12 other schools in the area who we have close ties with, are also able to make use of Virusend in their classrooms.’

Gary Coy, Chair of Trustees at The Rowdown Inspire to Aspire Foundation said: ‘We are so pleased to be able to work alongside Virusend and Royal Russell in this innovative and generous scheme that will support the welfare of thousands of Croydon children and their families as they return to the school environment next week and beyond.’

Michael Pritchard, who once successfully appeared on Dragon’s Den, developed the unique disinfectant during the first lockdown and it has been undergoing rigorous testing at a world leading research institute.

The 53-year-old has worked on perfecting the environmentally friendly antiviral spray in partnership with the British Army, which uses compressed air instead of VOC flammable gasses, is fully recyclable and fully reusable.

Michael Pritchard, Director at Virusend said: ‘We know that getting schools up and running again is a vital first step in the country’s roadmap to recovery.Our technology has been protecting troops on a daily basis already – so introducing it into schools was the natural next step. We are calling on schools across the country to get in touch as we’d like to ensure every pupil and teacher is as protected as possible.’

The Army asked Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine to conduct tests at their Bio Security Level 3 Laboratory. They certified that VIRUSEND kills 99.99 percent of all strains of SARS -CoV-2 in 1 minute.

Volunteer Police Cadets

Young Carers Project

The Young Carers Project held their annual Family Fun Day in the grounds of Royal Russell.

This is an important day for child carers to have much needed respite and enjoy games and activities, which this year included a small petting zoo and bouncy castles.This year saw an increase in the number of families attending. It was a pleasure to see both these children having fun in a safe environment.

London First Aid Competition.

The Volunteer Police Cadets came Royal Russell to take part in the London District Regional First Aid Competition.

They needed to complete one team scenario and an individual scenario each.

All competing cadets were assessed on various things, such as reassuring the casualties, treating them promptly and effectively, ensuring they were warm and as comfortable as possible, handing over to paramedics etc.

Overall, it was a brilliant day interacting with the Cadet forces.

National Citizen Service

Mayor's Fundraising Concert