Sports equipment money raised by schoolchildren in St Albans

Money for new sports and play equipment in a St Albans school have been raised by students.

Samuel Ryder Academy pupils will use the £1,800 raised to buy netball and basketball hoops, playtime games sets, a football goal, new benches, and a worm farm and bug pots for children interested in nature.

It started when the school’s Academy Cabinet, which is made up of one female and one male student from Years 3 to 13, asked their fellow students how to improve the school – they then took suggestions to a PTA meeting with a financial plan.

Chair of Samuel Ryder Academy’s PTA, Michelle Miles, said: “Listening to suggestions from the Academy Cabinet on how to spend the funds we raise embodies all that we are about, it gives us the opportunity to spend our funds on items which are important to our students and make a real difference to their time at school.”

Year 13 student and co-chair of the Academy Cabinet, Anisa Ashraf, said: “Through buying additional play equipment, the primary students are able to develop fundamental skills, such as balance, throwing and catching.

“Within the secondary phase, students were keen for additional relaxing areas which have been provided through purchasing more outdoor benches.”

Samuel Ryder Academy’s head of Year 11, Kyle Barry, said it is a “pleasure working with the members of the Academy Cabinet”.

He said: “The students have successfully demonstrated great autonomy, collaboration and dynamism – key skills for life in modern Britain.”