Fundraising Events

Friday Market

The Friday Market is hosted on campus throughout the term time. Having paused for more than two years through the pandemic, it will gradually unfold to become a bustling Farmer’s Market, where families can socialise, buy fresh groceries for the weekend (most of which is local, certified organic and biodynamic).

Individual Classes host stalls to raise funds for charity or their Class trip. There is also a Reloved Stall stocked with quality Waldorf items gifted by families, with all proceeds going towards the School’s ambitious Growing Spaces Project.

Spring Fair

The annual Spring Fair is normally held in May. It is an opportunity for individual Classes to host a Class Stall / Activity / Event to raise funds for their Class Trip. 

Each of the stalls are allocated to a specific Class (including Seedlings and Kindergarten Early Years), which is matched to the level of fundraising required for the trip. The Stall is held at the discretion of the individual Class.  

This event is open to the school community and close friends only.   

Halloween Ceilidh

The Halloween Ceilidh is a Class 12 fundraiser, hosted in the School Hall for the School community.

Christmas Market

The annual Christmas Market is a vital fundraising and social event in the school calendar, bringing in over 2,000 people through the gates, from the school community and the wider public.

Each year the parents of Class 4 take on its overall organisation but the whole school community is involved in the production of goods for sale and their presentation on the day. On this Saturday, usually just before Advent, the School is transformed. There are many beautiful and unusual things for sale: dolls of all sizes, pottery, woodwork, dried flowers, baked goods, preserves, raffle tickets and much more. Hot lunches, coffees and cakes are served in a stylish café in one of the classrooms. There are activities for the younger children, puppet shows and music. 

The school parents/carers are an ever-changing body but skills for the making of traditional items for the Market are passed on and new ideas are incorporated as people come and go. New parents/carers are always welcome in the groups making goods for the Market and it is a good way to meet other parents/carers with children in different Classes up and down the School.

It is a busy day, which regularly raises more than £10,000. This money is spent on vital resources, which the School would not otherwise be able to afford. It has its own Christmas Market Spending Group, made up of volunteers who decide how the proceeds are invested back into the school. Pupils, parents and teachers are invited to submit applications to fund projects.

Burns Night

Traditionally celebrated with a ceilidh and sit-down meal in the School Hall, Burns Night is hosted as a fundraiser by an Upper School Class.

Growing Spaces Project

Following £0.6m investment in extending our curriculum spaces over 2018 – 2022,  ESS began the academic year 2022/23 with the highest roll for several decades, showing demand is increasing for a distinctly different standpoint on education.

With a flourishing need to create a dozen classrooms with a 25-pupil capacity and extend our Early Years buildings for up to 80 children a day, fundraising efforts are underway to raise a further £0.2m to progress with our ambitious Growing Spaces Project. In Phase Three, we hope to create two purpose-built Waldorf Seedlings spaces in the Edinholme Gardens to accommodate our youngest pupils.

ESS has been helped significantly with meeting the costs of conserving our once dilapidated 19th Century East and West Coach Houses into 21st Century curriculum spaces through the generosity of our Waldorf community, including the ongoing literary royalties from former teacher, Charles Kovaks, from his collection of books. These royalties, gifted to GSP to benefit all pupils and teachers current and future, total over £80,000.

There are lots of ways you can help us to realise this project. Visit How You Can Play Your Part.

Philanthropy

For many years, the School has engaged in the organised activity of raising funds for Save The Children through a Christmas Jumper Day and non-monetary items to support causes and charities, such as the Michaelmas food bank collection for local vulnerable families in crisis and Christmas present appeal for homeless children in Scotland.

Our aim is to develop responsible, free-thinking young people who can contribute to society with initiative and purpose. In addition to offering the Duke of Edinburgh Awards Scheme, timely generosity by parent, teacher or pupil led initiatives is also supported on campus, for example the Ukrainian Crisis and individual sponsorship projects.

Waldorf schools are state-funded in many countries around the world. The kilted cost in both Scottish schools are lowermost in Scotland’s independent sector. We endeavour to widen access to a Waldorf education further, providing an inclusive educational experience for the children,  through the Bursary & Family Support Fund, as well as offering ELC funded places in our Early Years for more than thirty years.

ESS strives to help the wider community, through grassroots organisations benefitting from the School’s facilities and collaborative projects that involve educational experiences for our pupils that provide vital volunteering, such as our Tree Planting Programme, harvesting organic crops on a biodynamic farm and Gardening Programme: tending to the local Council-run flower beds of the day centre for older people with dementia and physical support needs.

Visit Social Responsibility for a more detailed overview of the School’s own initiatives.