Making a donation

Philanthropy has played a pivotal role at various stages in The Royal Latin School’s long history, and we are very grateful to those individuals, corporate partners and charitable trusts who still wish to make donations to enable us to continue to improve our facilities and learning opportunities for our students.

Our 600 Campaign fundraising drive comprises three main phases – Phase One (the Discovery Centre, opened 2015), Phase Two (Sports Campus – opened 2021), and during 2025/26 we will publicly launch Phase Three, our Arts Centre, currently in feasibility study stage – will publicly launch during 2025/26.

The School Development Fund continues to exist to enable supporters of the school to make regular or one-off gifts – either towards specific departments or projects, or towards the general upkeep of the school and its grounds.

How to make a donation

If you are in a position to make a donation to the school, we would love to hear from you. You can find out more about the different areas your donation could support below, along with links to our online donations pages.

We can also accept donations via bank transfer, or can still receive cheques (details below).

If you’d like to talk to us about making a donation, or you’d prefer to arrange a visit to find out how your donation can best help, please email Jo Ballantine at jballantine@royallatin.org

Teaching & Learning Funds

Sport Campus – ongoing improvements

It’s fantastic to see our new ek robotics Sports Campus complete. 

Now we need to make sure that we can keep the facilities in tip-top condition with regular equipment maintenance, annual equipment servicing, ongoing improvements and a special fund to allow us to save up £25,000 per year to allow for resurfacing of the pitch in 2030. If you would like to contribute towards keeping our Sports Campus as amazing as it should be you can make a donation specifically towards this.

Arts Centre – early support

Our proposed new Arts facility will house the Music, Art and Drama departments to create a centre of artistic excellence at the very heart of the school, incorporating theatre, rehearsal, studio and gallery spaces, for use by the school and community. Our fundraising campaign for the Arts Centre won’t get underway publicly until 2025/26 – but if you would like to start contributing to our fund then you can start straight away, and we’ll keep you updated on our progress towards the campaign launch.

Annual Fund projects

If you’d like to make a general donation towards the school and are happy for us to decide which project to spend it on based on our most urgent needs, you can donate to the Annual Fund. We’ll put your gift to good use and report back to you every year about the projects you’ve helped to support.

Departmental Funds

Whether you’re an Old Latin and would like to give a gift to the Department which you remember most fondly, or you’re a family who would like to say a thank you to a particular Department for its support, you can now make a donation directly to them, for them to use to buy additional resources or fund extra-curricular learning and visits. 

When you make your donation, please note in the comments which department or project you would like to support.

Heritage Funds

We are so fortunate to have a lovely green and historic site, and we work very hard to ensure that our heritage is preserved and the school site is carefully maintained. There are a number of ways you could donate to help us:

Archive

As we approach our 600th anniversary, conserving and expanding our unique school archive is an important priority. Since we opened the archive ten years ago, we have been collecting documents and memories, and carefully looking after items gifted to us by the families of former students. As one of the oldest schools in the country, we want to share our story of a school from humble beginnings, which has withstood the test of time and endured many periods of political and social change through the centuries. If you would like to help us with our mission to bring our Archive alive through technology and increased access you can donate towards this project.

Brookfield

Once a significant Victorian hunting lodge, built by the Byass family (of the Gonzalez-Byass sherry dynasty), the former Head’s house and boys boarding house is beginning to show its age and is in need of ongoing care and restoration. Now home to the library, art, music and Special Needs departments, as well as the Headteacher’s office, staff room and meeting room, Brookfield has roofing and stonework in need of repair, and some beautiful tiling needing specialist restoration. If you would like to make a contribution towards maintaining this important building you can donate to this fund.

Rotherfield

Described after its completion as ‘one of the finest villas in Buckingham’, the former girls’ boarding house is now home to our 6th form study centre. Parts of the building underwent a £1m renovation in 2016 and are now thankfully watertight and warm! Additional works, improvements to the external spaces to allow students to work outside in the fresh air, and resources for 6th form study would enable us to ensure this important part of the school continues to thrive.

If you would like to support the additional works needed for this historic building, please donate to this fund.

Grounds maintenance

Our lovely site is both a blessing and a responsibility. Keeping the green spaces tended and planted is a full time job, and the magnificent specimen trees, planted by the Victorians when the hunting lodge was first built and listed at Kew Gardens as specimens of particular interest, require plenty of care and specialist attention. 

Donating to the grounds fund would help us to ensure that our wonderful site can be enjoyed for many years to come.

Latin Inspires

We are seeking Old Latins to lead the way in becoming founding members of our alumni giving circle called Latin Inspires. Latin Inspires is a community of Old Latins passionate about supporting their old school and helping to inspire future generations of Latins.

Your gift will go towards the final phase of the 600 Campaign, which will see us create a fantastic theatre, music and art facility at the heart of the school and will give students the space and tools to gain the confidence, resilience and expressive skills they need in order to thrive. Click on the Donate button on the left to read more or to donate.

Contacting us in person:

If you would like to discuss your donation, you can reach our Director of Development, Jo Ballantine, at jballantine@royallatin.org or telephone: 01280 827309

If you would like to receive details on how to make a donation via bank transfer or via cheque, please email the team at RLS600@royallatin.org

RLS is a Registered Charity – donations may be eligible for tax relief

However you choose to donate, for every £1 donated by UK taxpayers RLS can claim an additional 25p from the Government via the Gift Aid scheme. If you are a UK taxpayer, please make sure you complete a Gift Aid declaration to enable us to maximise the value of your gift. If you are a higher rate tax payer, there is even better news – you can reclaim part of your donation in your next tax return, so a personal donation of £125, actually only costs you £93.75, and (including Gift Aid claimed by us) results in a contribution of £156.25.

For further details about giving tax effectively, visit www.gov.uk/donating-to-charity/gift-aid

Application to Sixth Form 2023

Save the Date

The Sixth Form Open Evening will be held on 17th November 2022.

Important announcement

We are open today, Tuesday 13th December. If the situation changes with the weather we will update the website and social media accordingly.