School of the Year – Social Mobility

We are delighted to announce that Reigate Grammar School was named “School of the Year” at the UK Social Mobility Awards (SOMOs) ceremony yesterday, Thursday 14 October 2021. The SOMOs, now into their fifth year, were set up to recognise the people and institutions dedicated to leading the way in advancing social mobility in the UK.

Reigate Grammar School has been named school of the year for four years in a row now including for its work on pastoral care and community engagement and now for a whole school commitment to promoting social mobility.

Headmaster, Mr Fenton stated, “The children and adults in our school were determined to show that whilst our doors were closed, our hearts were still open. This defines who we are as a school.”

Over 170 children receive bursaries at the school and the RGS team in the Foundation raises millions through philanthropic giving to provide life changing bursaries through the award winning Changing Lives campaign and the school launched the Nightingale Fund providing bursaries for children of lower paid NHS and front line workers: part of our thank you to the NHS heroes.

The #RGSWeCare project aligns the values and priorities of our wider Reigatian community. Over the last 18 months hundreds of students, staff and parents helped, volunteered, donated food or clothes and, in one way or another, were part of a national response to Covid – we recognised that those who were already less advantaged became even more vulnerable. These are the Reigatian values. The school provides support and opportunity to children around the community in sport, careers advice, music, drama, maths, art, literature and more.

The children also came up with ingenious projects to increased support for local community charities such as a Christmas run to Santa’s Grotto at the North Pole, drive through food bank collections, donut days and more to help Stripey Stork, Loveworks, The Children’s Trust and others.

Tunde Banjoko OBE, Founder of The UK Social Mobility Awards, added: “We are delighted that the UK Social Mobility Awards shows that there continues to be positive activity being conducted across the country, as corporate Britain comes together to drive forward social mobility. However, as much as has been done, we still have significant work to do, as when it comes to social mobility, there is no limit to better. I would like to congratulate Reigate Grammar School for winning.”