News

During the week commencing 20 April 2020 Dane Court staff supported Chatham and Clarendon Grammar School (CCGS) in its truly amazing efforts to provide face shields (visors) for staff working on the frontline in the battle against the coronavirus (COVID-19).

Teachers, and other volunteers at CCGS had been making the visors since the beginning of April when teacher of Technology, Mr Taylor, linked up with Julie Yanni, who is head of nursing at East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust. Together they developed an effective, lightweight visor of simple design which, importantly, can be manufactured with just a few hand tools. Their first production run at the CCGS Clarendon site on, 2 April, yielded 84 visors which were promptly delivered to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital.
Word spread quickly and requests for more visors started arriving from other places providing critical care to patients with COVID-19. CCGS responded by appealing for more materials and escalating their manufacturing potential.

Less than three weeks later the team had expanded and more than twelve thousand visors had been made and delivered to numerous local grateful recipients and some hundreds of miles away.
It was when CCGS received one particularly large request last week that they asked us to provide tools, equipment and practical support.

And so, on Monday 20 April 2020, amid the depths of Lockdown, six Dane Court staff, with the guidance of CCGS Technology teacher (and now experienced visor maker) Mr Kelly, started a second production line at the Chatham House site, adding parts for more than 800 visors and bringing the grand total to 14,500 visors made. We continued working each day that week towards a combined target of 20,000 visors.

UPDATES
Tuesday 21 April 2020: Combined total of more than 2400 visors completed today across both production lines. That brings the running total to almost seventeen thousand.
Wednesday 22 April 2020: Another 2410 units manufactured and assembled. Our overall total is now 19097.
Thursday 23 April 2020: Our 1340 visors helped set a new daily record of 2600 which brings the total so far to 21692. The project is also manufacturing parts and packaging them into kits which are being sent to the local Kent Fire and Rescue Service who assemble them ready for distribution.
Article on The Guardian website features a small piece about the project and a couple of photos.
Friday 24 April 2020: Today we made enough parts to produce 1460 assembled visors AND to provide another 900 in kit form for assembly by the local Kent Fire and Rescue Service.
The final total number of visors (assembled and in kits) is 28,832.
Wednesday 20 May2020: CCGS's Design Technology department has been nominated for the Daily Telegraph DIY Lockdown Awards for coordinating this amazing project. The judges have now shortlisted three groups of makers nationally including CCGS.
Friday 29 May 2020: CCGS wIn the daily Daily Telegraph DIY Lockdown Awards.
Watch the video below or click here to watch on YouTube from 1:41.

You can find more information on the CCGS Twitter page and the Chatham & Clarendon Grammar Visors for NHS Staff gofundme page.

Thanks to Dane Court Staff and helpers: Mr Ballard, Mr Howard, Mr Hunter, Mr Hutchings, Mr Linton, Mr Morris, Mr Oxenham, Mrs Radley, Mr Stanley and Mr N Williams for their hard work and to Mr Kelly for coordinating our production line.