Through its Public Benefit activities, Leicester High School for Girls endeavours to meet the objective laid out in our Vision of Being a School at the Heart of Our Community. To achieve this, LHS will foster and develop our altruistic spirit to generate significant benefit for others. Our Public Benefit activities are themed around achieving the following aims laid out in our Vision:  

Be an outward facing school:   

Our Junior Department runs a Little Learners playgroup every Wednesday morning during term-time. The group is open to local parents and children aged 0-5 years for a subsidised cost and attracts approx. 10 families each week who enjoy the opportunity to meet and play. The sessions are led by a highly trained teaching assistant who also provides advice and support to parents.  

Music students visited a local residential home in December 2022 to perform seasonal music and talk with the residents. This is part of a series of similar activities which provide benefits to both pupils and the community.  

Local nurseries are invited to bring along their pre-school children to regular Stay and Play events in our EYFS unit. These often make use of the additional facilities the School is able to offer including our well-equipped playground and spinney area.  

The School’s drama students perform annually in the Schools Shakespeare Festival, a national community project. 

Classrooms are used by community groups which are open to the public. The gym and drama rooms are used by a performing arts group, taekwondo and ballet groups weekly. The hall and art room are used by sketch/art clubs several times a year. The hall is also used for a holiday club and weekly yoga clubs. In addition, our facilities are used for ad-hoc meetings, children’s parties and music rehearsals. 

Develop close relationships with other educational institutions across the county and beyond for the mutual benefit of all concerned:  

We organise and host a series of free, academic Masterclasses to provide stretch and challenge for state primary school girls who have been identified as more able.  

Running each half-term, Masterclasses cover subjects including Mathematics, Science, Food Studies, PE, Expressive Arts and Computing.  

Maintained primary schools across the city and county are invited to put forward talented girls who they feel would benefit. The Masterclasses are provided free of charge and each attendee leaves with photographs from the day. Enthusiastic Y12 and Y13 students help as mentors at each Masterclass.  

Masterclasses allow our local primary schools to fulfil their requirement for able, gifted and talented provision. One school said of our English Masterclass “The English Masterclass was fabulous and the girls from Billesdon [School] all enjoyed it.” 

Each December, GCSE Drama students attend local primary schools to perform a Christmas-themed theatre production to students from Years 1-3. In December 2022 the set, which had also been designed by GCSE students, was donated to one of the primary schools after the performance for use in their own school nativity. 

GCSE students from a local maintained secondary school have been invited to attend LHS for an Introduction to Sixth Form Day which provided them with detail on sixth form life as well as an opportunity to experience taster lessons in their subject options.  

Children from local maintained primary schools were invited to attend the dress rehearsal of our 2023 School production.  

Further embrace our commitment to charity: 

Fundraising for charitable causes is a large part of School life at Leicester High and we support a wide range of causes.  

Our Sixth Form Prefect Team chose a number of charities to support each year. The Sixth Form charities for 2023/2024 are:

• Midland Langer Seva Society

• The Ashley Shillingford Foundation for Positive Living

• Leicester High School for Girls Environmental Subsidy

The Junior Department also choose a charity to support each year. For 2022/2023 their charity is Rainbows.  

We also support several other charities events and appeals throughout the year, including providing food and toiletries for our local Women’s Aid group. In 2022/2023 the total raised for charity was £8527.  

Focus on diversity and inclusivity as the School makes every attempt to embed equality and global respect: 

Diversity and inclusivity are fundamental to all aspects of LHS school life. Equality and diversity are taught as part of the PSHCE curriculum throughout the School and are also actively embedded into the curriculum of all subjects.  

The School celebrates the diversity of our student body through the recognition of religious festivals across the School.  

The pupils are encouraged to celebrate diversity in all its forms and take an active role in organising assemblies, talks and displays to develop understanding and encourage conversations.  

Develop our bursary activities in line with our charitable status and values:  

The School is committed to providing financial assistance to families whose daughters meet the School’s entrance criteria but whose financial circumstances mean they are unable to consider funding an independent education. Leicester High Bursaries provide means-tested assistance from Year 6 onwards and range from 10% to 100% of fees. The provision of bursaries is widely advertised and, where available bursary funds cannot meet demand from academically qualified applicants, awards are made on the basis of the applicant’s performance in their entrance examination. 

Each award is subject to annual financial assessment. The School also provides financial hardship assistance where parents (or the fee payer) of girls already in the School suffer unexpected financial hardship. Each case is assessed on an individual basis.  

In addition to our means-tested bursary provision the School also awards academic and music scholarships to exceptional candidates.  Our Headmaster’s Scholarships for Year 7 provide fee remission of up to 25%. Our Music Scholarships provide financial assistance towards extracurricular music lessons. 

We work with a local Leicester-based charity, The Sir Thomas White Trust, to provide a means-tested scholarship of 100% fee remission to a girl who was previously educated in the maintained sector. The scholarship is for an academic girl who would not have the means to fund an independent school place normally. 

Staff whose daughters attend the School are also entitled to a remission on school fees of 50% for full-time staff. In 2022/2023, a total of 122 pupils received funding assistance from the School.  

Our Head of Food Studies has set up a social enterprise, linking with two charities, Leicestershire Cares and Home for Good to teach care leavers/young people in semi-independent accommodation basic cookery and budgeting skills. 

Connect our alumnae more closely with LHS, and seek to engage their energy and talents for the benefit of current students: 

We have engaged our alumnae in delivering careers talks to pupils through our Enrichment Programme. Alumnae speakers have included medics, lawyers and engineers.  

Encourage all members of the LHS community to treat everyone with respect and courtesy and demonstrate concern for the needs of others: 

The School endeavours to always encourage our pupils to behave courteously, positively and with respect in their actions within and outside of School.  

We provide opportunities to engage with members of the local community and actively encourage charitable giving. Our Enrichment Programme includes themes dedicated to the environment and the community. Within this theme groups include Amnesty/Human Rights, which explores the importance of Human Rights through Amnesty International, looking at issues of inequality at home and abroad through student-driven investigation, case studies and school fund-raisers; LHS Wombles, who aim to make our bit of Leicester a tidier and more attractive place; and the Social Impact Society, which looks at the impact our school community has on others. Considering and running projects which will have a positive impact on the world around us - both locally and further afield. 

Show commitment to the families we serve, providing support, guidance and empathy: 

Parents are regularly welcomed into School for events and occasions. We have provided sessions covering online safety to our parent body, developing their skills and knowledge to help facilitate effective conversations with their daughters. Parents also have the opportunity to be involved informally through other activities such as our Parental Amateur Dramatics Group.