A long-awaited project to replace the unusable non-turf cricket pitch at Felpham Community College has been completed, thanks to a joint effort between Aldwick Cricket Club and the school itself. The new pitch will benefit both FCC students and members of Aldwick CC, strengthening a partnership that has been building in recent years and aims to benefit the wider community.

The existing artificial cricket surface had fallen into serious disrepair and had been deemed unsafe to play on, forcing the school’s cricket teams to play all of their fixtures away from home. Lack of a usable pitch on site has been a major barrier to participation and development of a sport growing in popularity amongst students.

Aldwick Cricket Club, which relocated from Aldwick to Felpham in the early 2000s and is based just metres from the college, has worked closely with the school to make the replacement possible. Many of the boys and girls who attend FCC already represent Aldwick CC at youth and senior levels, making the project a natural collaboration that supports cricket from grassroots to adult league level.

Ollie Smith, Aldwick CC Chairperson, commented:
“Aldwick Cricket Club is committed to giving more children opportunities to play cricket. Supporting our most local state secondary school with improved facilities is incredibly important to us. This new pitch will help hundreds of young people access the game.”

Bryn Hauxwell, Curriculum Leader for PE at FCC commented:
“Cricket is popular at Felpham and it’s a great opportunity to be able to give students good facilities to learn a new sport, or develop skills they already have”.

Aldwick CC successfully accessed £10,000 of funding through the ECB County Grants Fund, so the facility will also help support the rapid growth of the club, whose membership and range of playing offers has expanded at remarkable speed.

Lara Johnson, Junior Cricket Coordinator and Women’s 2nd XI Captain; explained:
“This project is game-changing for us; our home at Brooks Lane is already operating beyond it’s capacity and our teams have been playing ‘home matches’ as far away as Chichester. This will bring all our teams back onto our doorstep and enable us to provide even more cricket. We ventured into women’s and girls’ cricket in 2021 and already we run five girls’ teams and four women’s teams across a range of soft and hard ball formats. The momentum behind the female game continues to build and the new pitch ensures the club can keep expanding in this area. The ICC Women’s T20 World Cup is happening here in England & Wales next summer, and if the recent booms in girls’ football and rugby are anything to go by, we must be ready to welcome even more girls through our doors. The project is a great example of how clubs and schools can work together to grow the game locally. Young cricketers have already had their first look at the surface, with excitement growing ahead of the 2026 season”.  

Year 8 students at FCC – Harry and Pearl – commented:
“It looks amazing, I can’t wait to finally play some school matches here”, “It will make school cricket so much better.”

The pitch installation marks a significant step forward for cricket participation in Felpham and with the first matches scheduled for the spring, both FCC and ACC look forward to bringing cricket to even more people.

Please support our annual Christmas Charity Raffle. Huge array of brilliant prizes to be won!

• Tickets are £2.50 for a book of 5. You can purchase tickets through ParentPay and then students can collect them from N29A
• Tickets will also be available at the Fair
• The raffle will be drawn at 5pm at the Fair (3^rd December)
• People not at the Fair who win a prize, will be contacted directly to collect their prize from FCC
• Money raised from ticket sales is going towards our charities for this year 

Thank you to all the fantastic local businesses who have supported us with raffle prizes this year.

Help us make this the best year yet please!

All form groups are receiving a poster and a bag for life. Our aim is for each form group across the school to fill a bag of donations. We also have a table set up for staff and sixth form. We will then deliver all of the donations to Bognor Foodbank.

The deadline for donations is Monday 1st December.

Thank you in advance for your support.

On Wednesday 22^nd October, Felpham Community College held their annual Charity Cheque Presentation Ceremony.

Last academic year (2024/2025), FCC raised over £11,500 with various fundraising events. These included a Talent Show, Sponsored Dog Walk, Christmas Raffle and Fair, Non-School Uniform Days, and a week of activities within Youth Action Week – including a Sponsored Swim, Summer Fete and Sponge the Teacher!

The fundraising from all these events was then split between 6 charities and also ‘Improving Facilities for Students at FCC’. The ceremony was a chance to present the cheques to the charities and also say well done and thank you to some of the students who went above and beyond with raising sponsorship.

The charities that were supported last year (chosen by the FCC community) were:

• Breast Cancer Now
• Clymping Dog Sanctuary
• Dogs for Autism
• My Sisters House
• Ronald Macdonald House Charities
• Young People’s Shop Chichester

Mr Summers, Assistant Headteacher at Felpham Community College, commented:
“We are really proud of our charity commitment at Felpham and how much our students like to get involved and support. Each year gets bigger and better which is fantastic.

The money which went to FCC for ‘Improving Facilities’ went towards an outdoor large wooden shelter and picnic benches for students to use at break and lunch times, after student voice at Felpham highlighted the need for more outdoor seating areas. So, we are supporting our school community as well as fundraising for some excellent charities.

The charities that attended the event today were brilliant as they explained what the money will go towards and made us realise how we are helping. It was great for them to attend – thank you to Dogs for Autism, My Sisters House, Ronald Macdonald House and the Young People’s Shop for coming.”

110 students from Felpham Community College, accompanied by their dogs and FCC staff, took part in a charity sponsored dog walk on Tuesday 21^nd October.

Students from a variety of year groups took part in the annual FCC event, which is a firm favourite in the calendar of fundraising events each year. Students and their furry friends completed the 10-mile walk over the course of the school day, walking from Felpham Community College to Middleton, to Aldwick and then back to Felpham.

Rebecca Clarke, Student Leadership in charge of charity at FCC commented:
“This was the biggest group we have had take part in this event and it was hectic, but good fun. The public were really supportive of us along the route and students dug deep to complete the walk, especially when it started to rain a few times!  Some small dogs were carried in backpacks for some of the journey, to save their little legs (!), and it was great to have so many students out together across year groups.
We are hoping to raise over £1500 from this event alone, which will go towards the charities FCC is supporting this year. Thank you to all the students who took part in the event and for their families for supporting us, and the dogs of course – who all seemed to love it!”

Well done to our Young Writers!

Selected students across years 8 – 10 entered the Young Writers mini sagas writing competition entitled ‘Grim Tales’.

Congratulations to 32 of our students who have been chosen (out of all of the South East) for their work to be published in a compilation of work entitled ‘Grim Tales – Echoes of Darkness’.

FCC has been entering this competition for over 10 years. ‘Young Writers’ runs national writing competitions for schools, helping turn imagination and creativity into confidence and writing ability. More information is available here.

Amazing achievement – well done everyone!

At the beginning of the Autumn term, we asked the FCC community to nominate charities they would like us to support this academic year with our programme of charity events.

Following the nominations, our Sixth Form Charity Committee shortlisted to 10 charities. We then invited students, their families and staff to vote.

We are pleased to confirm that for the academic year 2025 / 2026, FCC will be supporting the following charities:

• Cancerwise
• Dementia Support at Sage House Tangmere
• The MS Society
• St Wilfrid’s Hospice

All the events we run this year – Non-school Uniform Days, the Sponsored Charity Dog Walk, the Christmas Fair and Christmas Raffle, the Talent Show, and the annual Summer Term Youth Action Week – will be fundraising for these charities, as well as ‘Improving Facilities for Students at FCC’.

We also support the Royal British Legion in November with the annual Poppy Appeal. We do a school wide donation drive in November/December for The Bognor Foodbank. And we are running a new Eco Swap clothing charity event in February! In 2024/2025 we managed to raise nearly £12,000 across the year of events so we are hoping to beat that this year!