Charlton School Boarding Unit

It is hard to believe that we are coming to the end of yet another year. Once again, we are very proud of what the students who use the Unit have achieved.

Georgina went to the Houses of Parliament in June to take part in an "Associated Parliamentary Group committee meeting". The committee is looking at Residential Care and was chaired by a member of the House of Lords and an MP, who report directly back to the Prime Minister and Georgina asked a question at this meeting and followed it up with an email to Lord Listowel who has promised to reply. Well done Georgina!     

We are very sorry to be saying goodbye to both Kayleigh and Frankie, both young ladies leave us in July. They have both been with us for quite a number of years and we are all going to miss them both enormously. The unit won’t be quite the same without them - it will be quiet, peaceful and quite tranquil (only joking!).

The Unit has had quite a busy and successful year since last September. We had our Care Standards Commission Inspection in January and we were delighted that we met every standard and exceeded four standards. This maintains our improvement in each of the four inspections that we have had. The report stated that the range of activities we had on offer was "astonishing".

We have had to make more structural changes to our building to meet certain standards that we have to comply with, one of which was the building of the Conservatory. This was essential as we really did not have sufficient floor space for our needs. We are very happy with the extra space that we now have. It is light, airy and spacious and creates a great lounge/TV area.

Over the past three years, we have been trying to get sufficient funds to build a sensory garden on some unused space behind the Unit. We were fortunate to receive a very generous donation in November which allowed us to start talking to contractors about what we could do with the space and funds that we had. We were incredibly lucky to invite a company called "Scenic Blue" along to give us some prices and ideas for what we could do. It occurred to us that we still needed additional funding to carry out this project.  We were fortunate enough to get additional help from Scenic Blue and Gianni Silvestri, Charlton Schools Community Development Coordinator to obtain further funding and charitable help.  Many thanks to following, who have made this project work:

Scenic Blue garden landscapes, Welling Round Table, Jewsons, T E Beach, ASDA, The Woolwich Building Society, Barclays Bank, Trineire design, Coolings Garden Centre, Coblands Garden Centre, Juha.com, Channel Woodcraft, Marshalls, P J Timber supplies, City Electrical Factors, McDonalds, Awards for all, Greenwich Pride and Longlyffe Timber.

The result is quite fantastic as you can see from the photograph. We have had a number of meals outside when the weather has allowed us to.