Phab

Phab UK is a charity which aims to promote and encourage people of all abilities to come together on equal terms, to achieve complete inclusion within the wider community.

During the Easter holidays, pupils from St. Helen’s School and Merchant Taylors' School run a week of activities for around twenty disabled boys and girls. The week is residential, held at Merchant Taylors' School, and allows the guests and hosts to share experiences and make new friends. As it is a residential week it also provides the parents and carers of the guests with a well-deserved week of rest and respite.

Students who take part in Phab invariably find it to be one of the most inspiring and life-changing experiences of their time in the Sixth Form. They spend a lot of time during the school year raising the money needed to run the week, most of which is raised by the school community through a variety of events. Pupils who wish to join Phab at the beginning of Year 12 fill in a written application and are interviewed. The final team is chosen based on the qualities the staff leaders consider to be most important for a member of the Phab team, such as resourcefulness, team skills, maturity, enthusiasm and the ability to cope with responsibility.

The Phab week has been run for almost 40 years and while the week itself is exhausting and the fundraising can be quite a demand on their time, our pupils find it to be very rewarding and they make lots of new friends.