Access to Opportunity

School ~ Home ~ Community

We at the Charity are giving much thought to how we might best respond to alleviate some of the anticipated difficulties that the current recession and reduced education budgets might bring. To ensure that the Charity's resources are expended directly for the benefit of the most disadvantaged young people, we consider that funds could be managed through schools, exploiting the crucial link between schools, home-life and community. Schools are uniquely placed to understand the dynamic between a young person's home-life and how support should be deployed there. It is, therefore, most appropriate that schools organise this additional support, whether from school-based staff like Learning Mentors or from Children's Trust-centred staff, such as social workers and health care professionals.

The Charity also supports the continuing trend for schools to work together in groups and cluster arrangements, maximising limited resources and impacting on a larger number of children.

All state schools within the Charity’s beneficial area are invited to apply to this new grants programme. Applications are invited from groups of schools, in partnership with local voluntary organisations where appropriate, for programmes aimed at supporting their most challenged pupils, strengthening links with home life and co-coordinating the support of other available professionals. We anticipate that a typical application might centre on a key worker, based at the “lead school”, whose brief would be to “project manage” support for a “caseload” of named individual young people.

A typical proposal might cost £25,000-£50,000. Funding will be available for a maximum of three years. It is hoped that after the initial start-up period, the projects will be self-financing, having justified their continuation through their success. Details of how projects will seek to be self-financing will be an important part of applications submitted.

Current funded projects

The following list details the projects that are currently funded under the Access to Opportunity programme. In each case, the school listed is the lead partner of a group of at least one or more other schools. There are currently more than 70 schools throughout the Charity's beneficial area participating in an Access to Opportunity project funded by John Lyon's Charity. If you would like any information on these projects, or more information on the types of projects eligible for support, please contact the Charity on 020 7591 3330.

Lead school	Project Description	£ in 2012/13	Borough	Programme Area
Acton High School	Get Involved! project	25,000	Ealing	Children & Families
Brentside High School	Strengthening home-school links	25,000	Ealing	Children & Families
Carlton Primary School	Tavistock Outreach in Primary Schools project (TOPS)	38,500	Camden	Emotional Wellbeing
Children First Cluster of Schools	Cluster arts programme	25,000	Harrow	Arts in Education
Childs Hill Primary School	Play therapy project with Catholic Children's Society	44,000	Barnet / Camden	Emotional Wellbeing
Christopher Hatton Primary School	Bengali Community Outreach Worker	24,000	Camden	Children & Families
Drayton Green Primary School	Counselling programme with Institute of Arts in Therapy & Education	34,000	Ealing	Emotional Wellbeing
Edward Wilson Primary School	Community supported learning programme with Queen's Park Primary and the Iraqi Community Association	22,000	Westminster	Education & Learning
Featherstone High School	Addressing Underachievement - Promoting Success project	25,000	Ealing	Education & Learning
Glebe Primary School	Canons Cluster Parent Ambassador Initiative	27,000	Harrow	Children & Families
Harrow West Cluster	'Team Around the Family' multi-disciplinery therapeutic project with Family Action Harrow	35,000	Harrow	Emotional Wellbeing
Horsenden Primary School	Place 2 Be programme in 10 primary schools in Ealing	30,000	Ealing	Emotional Wellbeing
Kingsbury High School	Psychotherapy project with Brent Centre for Young People	15,000	Brent	Emotional Wellbeing
Oldfield Primary School	Healthy Relationships for Life domestic violence initiative (from September 2013)	£20,000	Ealing	Emotional Wellbeing
St Gregory's Catholic Science College	Eastern European Families Project	48,000	Brent	Children & Families
St Mary's Church of England High School	Psychotherapy project with Whitefield School	24,000	Barnet	Emotional Wellbeing
St Stephen's CE Primary School	'Space to Talk' psychotherapy project	16,000	H&F	Emotional Wellbeing
Stanhope Primary School	In-School Psychology project with nine primary schools	50,000	Ealing	Emotional Wellbeing
West Twyford Primary School	Schools Counselling Partnership project (from September 2013)	£33,950	Ealing	Emotional Wellbeing
Wormholt Park Primary School	Art therapy provision	20,000	H&F	Emotional Wellbeing
		£581,450