Grant Reports

The first week of July this year saw glorious weather and the opportunity for 45 year 5 children (aged 9&10) from Hamble Primary School to spend a day on the water experiencing sailing.  This is the second year Hamble Primary School has been able to give this opportunity to their year 5 students and it has been a great success.

Being based on the peninsular, we are surrounded by water and although there are several students who spend a lot of their time on the water, there are also lots of our children who do not have the opportunity to experience being out in boats.  All of the children were offered a day on the water being taught in Pico’s and Vision’s at Hamble River Sailing Club over the course of 3 days.

All the children had a fantastic time.  I think the highlight for most was capsizing, intended or not! It also gave a chance for those children who do sail to take their friends out on the water and share their skills.  It is pleasing to see that, following on from the experience, some of the students have gone on to take their level 1 and 2 courses at HRSC.

There is nothing better than seeing a child enthused and excited by achieving something new. The chatter on the walk back to school was punctuated with “amazing”, “did you see”, “that was so much fun” which was lovely to hear.

As a school, we wanted to make this free to our students and we were very fortunate to receive a grant from The Royal Southern Yacht Club, for the second year, and also had donations from Hamble Parish Council, RF Composites and The Place2B to enable this to happen.  We would like to say a very big thank you to them and also to HRSC and their instructors for running a great 3 days.

We would like to run this as an ongoing activity, but we need your help to do this. If you are a local business or group which would like to support getting children onto the water in future years, please get in touch.  You never know by giving a child the opportunity to sail today they may go on to become the next Ben Ainslie!  However, our main goal is to increase our children’s understanding of safety on the water but also that it is a place of fun.

If you are able to support future events, please contact the school or the Friends of Hamble Primary School as we would love to hear from you. We have already planned our next event for July 2019 and our new Year 5 students are looking forward to it.

Contact: Mrs C. Wilding, Business Manager Hamble Primary School – 02380 453298

Or Friends of Hamble Primary School – info@friendsofhambleprimaryschool.co.uk