The United Westminster and Grey Coat Foundation recognised in The Parliamentary Review
The United Westminster and Grey Coat Foundation has been recognised as a best practice representative for the upcoming 2021 release of The Parliamentary Review.
The Foundation, formally established in March 2019, arose from the merger of two longstanding foundations as a single charitable entity. The Foundation’s five well-known schools have a long, rich history and feature a diverse range of contexts and cohorts, including a mixture of state, independent, single-sex and co-educational schools. The schools share a commitment to academic excellence and a strong Christian ethos.
In The Parliamentary Review, Foundation CEO Gordon Carver discusses how the Foundation is working to enhance provisions for disadvantaged students and striving to provide the very best education.
Each year, the Foundation invests £1million across its schools to increase social mobility. This funding is used for bursaries to improve access to its independent schools, support for its academies and to promote cultural activities for disadvantaged students.
The Foundation continued to find ways to support social mobility during the pandemic, launching its own ‘Covid Catapult Fund’. The Fund allows staff from its schools to propose projects that help disadvantaged students catch up on any lost learning. So far, projects have included Saturday primary school outreach tuition, additional mixed-ability Music Academy weekend courses, mental health counselling, and alumni mentoring.
The parameters for the projects are designed to ensure a lasting impact and help build a greater understanding of which projects are proving most effective. Eventually, the Foundation hopes to create a portfolio of best practice projects to help their schools and others to improve social mobility for disadvantaged students.
The Foundation encourages collaboration between its schools and others as well. They have developed a flagship partnership which is run by Emanuel School. Emanuel School’s Primary Ambitions is a successful outreach programme for 23 local primary schools, providing disadvantaged students with weekly learning sessions, additional resources and mentoring from Emanuel’s sixth form students. Plans are in place to create a similar partnership at Westminster City School and its surrounding primary schools.
The full details of The United Westminster and Grey Coat Foundation’s initiatives can be viewed here: www.theparliamentaryreview.co.uk/organisations/the-united-westminster-and-grey-coat-foundation.
The Parliamentary Review, an independent publication that looks at how key British organisations are responding to different political and economic challenges, is apolitical and reviews the latest events in parliament from a non-partisan perspective. Success for organisations of any size does not always come easily, and The Parliamentary Review is indispensable for anyone who seeks to make a difference in their sector. It highlights significant developments and concerns for leaders up and down the country.
The United Westminster and Grey Coat Foundation CEO, Dr Gordon Carver, said:
“I am delighted that The Foundation has been selected as an example of best practice to be featured in The Parliamentary Review 2021. Our Foundation is unusual in its mix of schools, but we believe this diversity is what helps us excel and by our schools collaborating, we are able to provide the best opportunities for our students.
“We are passionate about ensuring everyone can access these opportunities and we have designed a range of initiatives including the Primary Ambitions partnership scheme and the Covid Catapult Fund to support disadvantaged students from our schools and others in our local communities.
“It is fantastic to see students thriving from these opportunities and we look forward to continuing to expand our projects. Thank you to all our wonderful staff across the Foundation for your continued hard work and ingenuity.”
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Kwasi Kwarteng said:
“This year’s Parliamentary Review reflects on a tumultuous and extraordinary year, globally and nationally.”
