St John's Bulletin: Foundation Fund update
St John's Foundation
St John’s has supported the Bath community for 850 years. We work to Change Lives. For Good.
A note from Louise Harvey , Exec Director for the Foundation Fund:
With a new academic year now underway, we find ourselves pausing and reflecting on the first two years of our Foundation Fund, and the interventions that have been supporting children aged 0-12 in our community.
Established in 2020, the vision for our Foundation Fund is to ensure all children in Bath and North East Somerset can grow up to be happy, healthy, and educated members of our community. We want to ensure children start secondary school having met their age-related standards and we aim to help reduce the educational disparity we see in the region.?
Our Foundation Fund comprises three programmes:?
With our second academic year now complete, work is underway to compile and release the findings of the impact of the above programmes. In case you missed it, earlier this year we published the findings on the first year progress of our Foundation Fund.?
In introducing this edition of our bulletin, I am also happy to report that, last month I celebrated my 20-year anniversary at St John’s! I took some time to reflect back over the years and the changes I have witnessed. You can read my thoughts here!
How our three-year programme has empowered schools, families and their communities.
From September 2021, and as part of our wider strategy, we set in motion the three-year Primary Empowerment Programme (PEP). This programme provides additional support with reading, writing and mathematics as well as a range of accessible emotional and behavioural support to seven primary schools in BaNES which, together, teach 40% of the region’s most under-served children.
New up-skilling programme? aims to reduce the early language gap for under-served children?
Evidence has shown speech is fundamental in supporting children's learning, while providing them with the skills required to manage their emotions and behaviours.??
?We have partnered with Bath and North East Somerset Council and HCRG Care Group to deliver the Language for Life programme, an initiative that sits within our Foundation Fund, focused on developing oracy and communication support within early years settings.
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BaNES disparities: What is being done to address the educational attainment gap?
Overall, BaNES’ schools come in high against national expected learning standards, but these figures disguise significant disparities in the region.
The government has set a target for 90% of primary school leavers to reach expected learning standards by 2030, but what is being done on a local and national level and how are St John’s are contributing to achieving these figures?
St John’s runs the Bath Half marathon to raise money for books for local schools
This year, our amazing team of runners will be raising funds to provide books to the primary schools we support through the Foundation Fund.?
Money raised will benefit the children in not only their learning, but also enhancing their imagination and creativity whilst encouraging social skills amongst their peers and the wider community.
We're sponsoring Bath Children’s Literature Festival
St John’s are bringing schools from within our Foundation Fund to the festival. We aim to be an integral part of influencing transformation and support for childhood development in BaNES.