The children and staff of St Helen's are completing an exciting 'Reading Fundraising Fortnight', completing all sorts of different reading challenges as we look to raise £5,000 together towards our total project costs! Read on below to find out more!

‘Flying high’ lies at the heart of our vision as a primary school. It speaks of our ambition to each be the very best we can be, each and every day, in our learning, in our playing and as part of our community.

As a school we are situated in Alveston, just a few miles north from Filton, home to Bristol’s famous aerospace industry. Two of our children at St Helen’s came up with the phrase ‘Flying high’ and named our school houses after famous Bristol planes: Britannia, Brabazon, Blenheim and a more recent plane from Bristol, Concorde. Captain Frank Barnwell, famous aeronautical engineer lived in Alveston and is now buried next door to our school at St Helen’s Church. He built the first ever successful powered plane in Scotland and later built the Blenheim, working at BAE in Bristol.

Through grant funding, we have been able to raise the funds to purchase a section of a now disused plane, the BAE-146. This was a plane that was built in Filton and we want to bring the plane back near to home, installing it in our school site, and converting it into a fantastic library for the school community to access. As a school, we’re passionate about helping children to read and fostering a love of reading, so along with our ‘Flying High’ vision, this project has really caught the imagination of children and adults alike.

Funding

We have now raised the funds, through grants, to purchase and complete the initial works to the plane, and cover the transport and installation of it on the school site. This is really exciting news and means that Phase 1 of the project can be completed.

But, in order to use the plane as a library, which we can use from day to day, we need to raise the funds to convert it. To do this we need to insulate it, put an electrical supply in, add carpet and furnishings, heat it and then assemble a new collection of books for the children to benefit from. Along with this, we need to do some repair and restoration work to the plane, to bring it back to life.

To complete ‘Phase 2’ of the project, we need to raise between £12,500 and £15,000 to enable these works to take place.