Walcot's New Grantmaking Priorities (2020-2023)

We review and where necessary change our grantmaking priorities every three years. For the 2020-2023 priorities we undertook research which included consultation with Lambeth community organisations and schools in 2019. The Governors have adopted these Grantmaking Priorities for April 2020 to March 2023.
When reading these, remember that our focus is on low-income/poor Lambeth citizens, mostly under 30.

​Removing Barriers in Education
Sub elements

1. Developing resilience and well-being
2. Promoting effective parental engagement in child’s education
3. Student (re) engagement with school (note 1)​

Maximising Learning
Sub elements

1. Mastering literacy and numeracy (note 1)
2. Improving academic achievement through additional support outside school hours (note 1)
3. Enrichment opportunities for school pupils from low income households that inspire learning (note 2)

Building Employability
Sub elements

1. Enabling people under the age of 30 who are unemployed or stalled in low paid, insecure work to gain the necessary soft skills and qualifications to move to better paid employment.
2. Quality industry/employer experiences for school pupils

Developing Money Sense
Sub elements

1. Improved money management skills for young people (note 3)
2. Effective debt counselling and budgeting (funds for this sub-priority are currently fully allocated)​

Key developments:

• Improving academic achievement through additional support outside school hours has been added as a sub-priority to explicitly recognise current practice in funding projects such as community-based tutoring or homework clubs.
• The enrichment opportunities sub-priority now has additional guidance to clarify the types of projects that WF is likely to consider.
• Responding to what we learned from our Step-Up pilot programme, in-work progression has been integrated into our sub-priority on youth employment.
• The previous ‘good careers advice’ sub-priority has been amended to Quality industry/employer experiences for school pupils.  This was identified as a key area in which WF funding could add value to a school’s careers advice provision.
• The money management sub-priority has been focused to target young people (especially 16-18 year olds and young adults).

These priorities will guide our next Grant Round which opens for verbal expressions of interest on 9 March 2020.

 

Note 1 - Given the core nature of these sub-priorities (student engagement, mastering literacy and numeracy and improving academic achievement) to a school’s statutory purpose, The Foundation considers that this work should be partly or fully funded by the Pupil Premium, therefore any work in schools on this sub-priority should be 50% match-funded by schools.

 

Note 2 - We are glad to consider funding enrichment activities (for example sports, arts, drama, science technology, music, though not limited to these). The Foundation is particularly interested in activities that help build low-income pupils’ social capital by introducing them to new or broader experiences and perspectives. The Foundation has a preference for funding targeted and sustained group activities or one-to-one activity with pupils from low income homes.  This is particularly for pupils who have displayed aptitude or have expressed enthusiasm for the enrichment activity in question, or who are disengaged from education. We are unlikely to fund whole-class activity as we consider this part of the core provision that schools will offer to all pupils.

 

Note 3 - We are particularly interested in money management skills for 16-18 year olds and young adults.