Hucknall school to start up prom shop so everyone can go to the ball

Maranda Jones, a teacher at National CE Academy, said she came up with the idea in the wake of the cost-of-living crisis and the impact it was having on the household budgets of many students.

And she wanted to come up with a solution to ensure no-one missed out on a special night

She said: “Over a number of years, I’ve always collected a number of dresses for key students, but because of the cost of living, I thought it might be a bigger picture this year in terms of the number of students who might not be able to go, or might not feel they would be able to the prom, because of the financial cost on parents.

“It was during Christmas during the various Christmas parties and outfits for those that I thought that people could perhaps then donate those on to be used by someone else for the prom this summer.

“So I spoke to the headteacher and asked if it would be okay to do a Facebook post seeing if anyone had any prom dresses or suits that might be able to help our students and then do confidential appointments for the students to come and hopefully choose one they want.”

The Facebook post immediately gained huge traction with plenty of people commenting on how good an idea they thought it was.

And the result was a great response from the Hucknall community and beyond with people donating, not just a number of dresses and suits, but also shoes, nails and hair vouchers too.

Attending the prom is also a huge event in every student’s time at National and Maranda said it was as much about ensuring students did not miss out that spurred on to do this, as much as helping with the finances.

She said: “I don’t want students thinking they can’t go or parents thinking their children can’t go because they can’t afford that dress or that pair of shoes, for example, so actually taking that cost away from it means this is now something they can access that they didn’t think they could.”