Papplewick’s Remembrance Walk

The whole Papplewick School community – boys, parents, staff, families and friends took to the sunshine in Windsor Great Park recently for a sponsored walk in remembrance of a dear, much loved colleague, teacher, and friend – Lesley Jarman.  

Lesley died from a brain tumour at the start of the first lockdown. As Head of Learning Support Lesley was often assisted upstairs by her faithful dog, Cocoa – she had a great love of animals, and she also loved nothing more than walking around Windsor Great Park with Cocoa at her side.

Lesley really was a ‘Papplewick Sister’ as her brother attended the school when she was growing up and then became a ‘Papplewick Mum’ when her son Henry joined the school in 2016 for his final two years. Lesley then applied for the post of Head of Learning Support – a role she carried out with huge distinction, and latterly great courage until early 2020.

Bearing in mind that animals were so close to her heart, her family know that she would not have wanted to ignore the current humanitarian issues in Europe and therefore two charities were chosen to raise money for this year. One directly helps a group of 100 Ukrainian orphans who headed to the Polish border in three groups but were then safely reunited on a Polish farm which the owner has generously given over to them instead of using for holiday lets. The challenge is to meet their financial needs in order for them to remain on the farm for as long as possible and enabling them to go to school in September.  

The other cause is for ‘Underdog International‘ a UK based charity working globally to help children and dogs encouraging kindness, empathy, resilience and confidence and joy – as they say one child, one dog at a time.

Characteristically, the Community showed huge generosity and the total sum raised amounted to £11,500 which was divided equally between the two charities.

Headmaster Tom Bunbury said ‘I think I can confidently say that Lesley would have approved of both causes and I am so pleased that the sun shone for her on the day – Lesley brought so much strength and sunshine into the lives of our community.”

See Papplewick’s online listing here.