Sustainability and Supplementary Schools
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Claire A 01 October 2010, 10:53am |
Over the past 18 months I've had many conversations about sustainability of Supplementary Schools. Finances are a constant for any organisation, especially when many of the communities they work with face socio economic barriers. So how do schools overcome this? Hopefully we'll have some schools join this thread to share their thoughts and I'll be putting together a couple of small case studies to share. |
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Paddy 01 October 2010, 5:59pm |
Hi Claire, nice to have you here at last, m'dear! Looking foward to those case studies - and to seeing some schools get involved and share their experiences. Have a good weekend! |
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Claire A 05 November 2010, 2:12pm |
I'm back after forgetting my password!! So many passwords to remember these days! I see that we have two supplementary schools that have recently joined the learning exchange I'm going to ask them to comment their thoughts on sustainability and what are the real issues faced by schools with recent funding cuts and grant funding becoming even more competitive, so watch this space. |
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PascaleV 08 November 2010, 11:13am |
Supplementary schools could really support mainstream schools to engage with parents who speak English as an additional language and/or are not currently engaging with them. Supplementary schools want to work with mainstream schools but so often struggle to get attention, even when they are running saturday classes in mainstream premises they are too often seen as merely a source of income. The recently published research findings about study support and the disadvantage subsidy gives some useful pointers for supplementary schools on what needs to happen for real partnerships to grow. A quarter of schools struggle to engage deprived pupils in extended services' activities, such as sports and after-school clubs, government research has found. (Read it here) The study, which evaluated the success of the extended services' subsidy scheme for disadvantaged pupils, was commissioned by the previous government but published 27 Oct 2010 by the DfE. Nine out of 10 schools said the subsidy enabled them to increase the number of activities on offer and 86 per cent said the subsidy helped improve the quality of their provision for disadvantaged pupils. But only four in 10 parents and seven in 10 pupils thought their school had increased the number of activities on offer. Nearly all schools were working with external providers to provide extended schools activities. Around three-quarters of schools had formed new partnerships with external providers since the introduction of the subsidy. School staff acknowledged the benefits of working with external providers but found making links to be a challenge. Vital ingredients for engaging with external providers were found to be the development of good relationships, understanding differing working patterns and cultures, and providers having an understanding of the needs of the children in specific schools. |
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PascaleV 03 May 2011, 4:43pm |
We're running our FAME (Fundraising Applications Made Easy) training across the country in May/June - this training builds on experience of supporting supplementary schools to develop solid and fundable projects. It also touches on different forms of organisational development and considers whether the social enterprise model is the right one for your project. We're happy to open the training up to people from a range of professional and personal backgrounds, any one who is interested in developing a community-based response to educational disadvantage. Check our website for training dates and further information. http://www.supplementaryeducation.org.uk/ |
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