Manwood's Future Fund
The Manwood's Future Fund Overview
Manwood’s is at the start of an exciting period of change. Over the next five years, we will be building major new facilities in three ambitious phases and have set up The Manwood's Future Fund to finance these.
The Manwood's Future Fund has recently received its first money after the school negotiated an agreement with Dover District Council to access the first tranche of Section 106 money (from local property developments) that has been earmarked for Manwood’s since our expansion from 4 to 5 form entry. Over time, the school will receive £2.1m that will be gradually released as those developments are built and sold.
The Manwood's Future Fund will also receive money from the sale of our boarding assets. We are determined that those funds are used to enhance the experience of students at Manwood’s so that we can create a positive legacy from that sad decision to close boarding in 2020 during Covid. The first of these was the sale of the caretakers house, which has helped finance Phase One of our plan - our new Astro which is being officially opened in May 2024.
The Manwood's Future Fund will allow the school to commit the majority of the budget for each phase. We will apply for grants and hold fundraising events to bridge any gaps in funding. By using our own money to attract extra funding for each phase, The Manwood's Future Fund will be able to achieve significantly more for the school and our students.
Our current fundraising campaign: Phase 2 - The Grange
Now that the Astro is nearly complete, we have launched a year of fundraising for Phase 2, which will transform The Grange from a much loved boarding house into a bespoke and sustainable home for our Sixth Form. To watch our fundraising video, click on the link below.
We currently have two fundraising targets and our progress will be shown in the two thermometers below:
- £300,000 to improve the sustainability of The Grange - insulating it to stop heat escaping and then putting in a ventilation system that efficently warms up the fresh air that needs to be brought in. Those changes will allow us to remove The Grange's gas boilers and replace them with electric heat pumps. If we can do all of that, The Grange will be the school's first sustainable building and carbon emissions will have been cut from 40 tonnes of CO2 a year to around a quarter of that. You can support us by clicking our fundraising link below.
- £200,000 to kit out the rooms with furniture & IT as well as to maintain and enhance the beautiful original features of the building (old wooden doors, coving etc). If you'd like to sponsor and name one of the 11 refurbished rooms in the Grange and pay for the new furniture & IT needed to kit out those rooms, then please get in contact at fundraising@srms.kent.sch.uk and we can organise for one of our sixth formers to talk you through the plans and discuss the options for sponsorship.
The fundraising will properly start in February with a 'Buy a Brick' scheme for the new accessibility ramp that will be built to the front door of The Grange. Donors will be able to buy a brick and have a personalised message engraved into it - and all donations are going to the Manwood Trust (the school's charity) so that they can be Gift Aided to increase the size of our pot by 25%. At the same time, the student fundraising team will be approaching OMs and local businesses to see if they would like to sponsor and name one of the 11 newly refurbished rooms in the Grange and pay for the new furniture & IT needed to kit out those rooms.
