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Birkenhead firm Osprey teams up with St Peter’s Catholic School to raise money and improve performance

A group of Year 10 pupils at St Peter’s Catholic School in Guildford have teamed up with Birkenhead-based water bottle manufacturer Osprey to improve pupil performance and raise funds for charity.

The Year 10 Student Voice Team at the school, which represents all 180 Year 10 pupils, chose to undertake a marketing project to help promote St Peter’s drive to achieve Healthy Schools Enhanced status while raising money.

With Osprey they have designed bottles which they sell to pupils in order to maintain daily hydration and a small profit from each sale is split, with most going into a charity fund and the rest being set aside to go towards an end of school prom next summer.

“Each year has a Student Voice Team which is there to come up with projects that benefit their peers and also to learn useful skills which are not necessarily on the curriculum but will be useful once they enter the world of work,” said St Peter’s assistant headteacher Rachel Heard.

“We are committed to maintaining Healthy Schools status which means we offer a very healthy school menu including foods like wholegrain rice and carefully restricting foods containing saturated fats.

“As part of this the Year 10 Student Voice wanted to help improve hydration and their research discovered the Osprey Thinking Water campaign. They contacted the firm and arranged to work together. They opted to sell the Osprey Activ-PLUS bottle, which has a push-pull valved sports lid, which the students loved. The Activ-PLUS also has the added benefit of being eco-friendly.”

Osprey’s Thinking Water campaign is designed to highlight how hydration can affect performance in the classroom. Scientific studies show that pupils who are well hydrated perform up to 10% better in exams and have measurably improved concentration and comprehension in class.

Being dehydrated by just 2%, not even enough to feel thirsty, can have an impact on classroom performance.

The Student Voice group worked on a design featuring the St Peter’s school ‘key’ logo and Osprey provided bottles for them to sell in school. They have already sold some to the new Year 6 pupils who came to the school to familiarise themselves before starting in September, and to te rest of the school during Sports Day. They sold the bottles to existing pupils until the end of the summer term and plan to continue into the next academic year, when they will become the Year 11 Student Voice Team.

In September the group will sit down and discuss which charity will benefit from the cash raised, as the school supports a number of good causes.

Osprey sales manager Alun Simpson said the project was important as pupils were leading it and recognising that hydration is key within education.

“We know how important hydration is which is why we work hard with all our schools to promote the message that pupils need to drink plenty of water,” he said.

“But at St Peter’s the pupils have really embraced the message and are telling their own peers that this is as vital as exam revision or coursework. We are proud to have been selected to work with St Peter’s by the Student Voice team and we hope that by working together we can practically demonstrate the value of good hydration in education.”

Osprey manufactures water bottles for all kinds of uses, from sporting activities to the classroom. Their bottles, which feature guaranteed non-spill lids, are available to order from www.ospreyuk.com.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Dan Minchin .