Raising money for good causes is a corner stone for any church school. Serving those perhaps less fortunate than ourselves is a simple premise for us to put others first. We engage in a number of events and opportunities – some school generated and others part of a national agenda. We believe it is part of our moral duty to show children that things are not always as equally as we might like or pretend.

Annually we support several national charities e.g Children in Need, Sport and Comic Relief by holding non-uniform days. We support The Poppy Appeal by selling poppies.

We support some charities a little closer to home e.g. Trussell Trust (Salisbury based food bank we support with Harvest donations and Christmas Boxes for Bulgaria), Alabaré (Christian Salisbury Homeless Charity) and Help for Heroes (Salisbury based). At the end of the Carol Service we hold a retiring collection for a local charity.

Many children have historically helped raise money for ‘Child of Hope’ school in Uganda. Each year many children choose it as their chosen charity and raise money through sponsored events or cake sales.

The school employs, along with the infant and special school, a professional Cluster Fundraiser. She works tirelessly chasing funding streams, income generation ideas and completing lengthy bids e.g. Lottery, Heritage etc. She researches opportunities and coordinates our separate wishes across the campus to maximise the impact of bringing in income.

The proceeds from the Shop are reinvested in children. They may provide treats such as parties or capital for enterprise projects. This year Child of Hope and MacMillan Cancer have held bespoke coffee mornings to raise money for their good causes. Increasingly we are inviting the charities to come in and present to children about

The Friends of St Mark’s raise money directly for all our children – providing some of the extras that the budget will not stretch to. The proceeds from discos, Christmas Draw and Summer Fair raise funds for the school.

Historically we have held whole school sponsored events e.g. fun run, SuperSchools that have bought big items for the school.

We encourage users of our website to use the Easyfundraising link so that parents’ online shopping via this mechanism earns us valuable commission. We also use a clothes recycling charity (Ragbag) to turn unwanted clothing into money for the school.