It’s a twenty minute walk and, for most of our pupils, a life-time’s experience away. All 150 primary and secondary pupils there have special needs, including ADHD, EBD, Down Syndrome and Autism. Apart from the personal benefits the girls have enjoyed through successfully meeting the challenge of connecting with such children, one of them used her experience for her A level DT project. Her innovative design, based on squares and hexagons, is made out of foamed PVC, in bold primary colours. Climbing inside gives a child a few precious minutes in his own interactive world.

It’s hard to make difference in an hour or so a week; luckily our summer term ended two weeks before theirs, so we seized the opportunity to send 28 volunteers, from Years 10-13, to contribute their skills in the wide range of activities going on in that fortnight, from helping with sports day, the Leavers’ Ceremony, and a Summer Fair, to working as classroom assistants with Key Stage 1 and 2 children.

One of the girls wrote afterwards: The experience which I gained at Turney School was an incredible one. It made me realise the enormous challenges which the teachers and pupils face on a daily basis. The work was exhausting but enjoyable. The rewards from just working there for one week were immense. I’ll never forget the time that one of the normally very unresponsive children smiled at me.

Normally you know the boundaries of child behaviour. Dropping in on the school one week, I was struck by how quickly the girls had learnt strategies to cope with the unexpected, to deal with the outspoken, the unrestrained demands for attention, to coax reluctant eaters and communicators. It was an impressive two-way learning experience.

Year 13 JAGS girls designed and painted the Rousseau-inspired backdrop (above) for the Turney School production of Jungle Book.

Read about the summer work undertaken at Turney School