School Buildings’ Fund

St Swithun’s Catholic Primary School is part of the Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth’s commitment to providing Catholic education for our children. As a Voluntary Aided school, we receive only 90% of the capital funding provided to non-faith schools for the maintenance and development of school buildings and grounds. This has always been the case and is a longstanding feature of Catholic education in this country.

For generations, Catholic parishes and families have worked together to provide the additional funding needed to sustain and improve our schools. The Diocesan Schools’ Building Fund enables this tradition of shared support to continue, helping to ensure that our children benefit from high-quality learning environments both now and in the future.

Each year, the Diocese charges St Swithun’s a contribution for every pupil on roll, irrespective of the level of support received from families. To help meet this commitment, we ask families to contribute £35 per child per year via their child’s SCOPAY account. The continued generosity and support of our families plays a vital role in enabling improvements to our buildings and grounds, ensuring that St Swithun’s remains a safe, inspiring and well-maintained environment for current pupils and for future generations.

Gift Aid

Most of the parents who contribute to the fund do so under the Gift Aid Scheme. Under this scheme, the school can reclaim from HMRC the basic rate tax you have already paid on your contribution. This increases the value of your contribution at no cost to you – for each £100 that we receive, the school claims back an additional £20! And if you are a higher-rate taxpayer, you can claim relief on the difference between the basic rate and the higher rate of tax.

The Gift Aid declaration can be completed through your child’s SCOPAY account. 

• Log into your child’s SCOPAY account (this only works on the website, not the app)
• Go to Your Info on the right-hand side
• Select Gift Aid
• Tick the box and complete the My Details section
• Further information on Gift Aid from HMRC is available from: hmrc.gov.uk/individuals/giving/gift-aid.htm

How to contribute:

• All donations can be made through your child’s SCOPAY account
• Please note that we can only accept donations by debit, not credit card

The Governors would like to thank you for your continued support.

Cara Guedeney, Chair of Governors