Here are some examples of schools that have recently been awarded a grant by John Lyon’s Charity.
- Stag Lane Junior School – Parent Ambassador Initiative under the Schools in Partnership Fund
The Parent Ambassador Initiative was set up in 2007 to help parents become engaged in their child’s learning. It was developed as part of the Canons Cluster Extended Schools programme, which promoted extracurricular development and out of schools hours’ services. In 2010, John Lyon’s Charity awarded a grant of £27,000 per annum for three years to the Harrow-based cluster, to help establish the programme in the schools. Stag Lane Junior was the lead school.
The project involves parents in all aspects of school-life and gives them a better understanding of the education system. This is achieved by the recruitment of ‘Parent Ambassadors’ who are able to communicate with their fellow parents effectively and in an approachable way. The project has been very successful in all of the schools in the cluster and has since become embedded into the way each of the schools work. As a result, Parent Ambassadors are now sustained through the schools own incomes.
There are nine schools in the Canons Cluster:
Aylward Primary
Canons High
Glebe Primary
Camrose Primary with Nursery
Krishna-Avanti Primary
Stag Lane Infant and Nursery
Stag Lane Junior
St. Bernadette’s Catholic Primary
Woodland Special School- Horsenden Primary School – Place2Be Consortium under Schools in Partnership Fund
This project provides the Place2Be Hub service in 10 primary schools in LB Ealing. The lead school is Horsenden Primary, which has an incorporated Children’s Centre on the site. The Place2Be model had been established in the schools with a grant from John Lyon’s Charity and had been fully embraced by all schools in the cluster.
The 10 schools are located in the Greenford, Northolt and Perivale (GNP) areas of the borough, parts of which fall under the most deprived areas in the country as measured by the Index of Multiple Deprivation. Teenage pregnancy rates are the highest in the Charity’s beneficial area (Northolt) and amongst the highest in the country. Police data also recognises it as an area amongst the highest for domestic violence.
The “hub” has a salaried Hub Manager who supervises the clinical work and ensures the service is successfully integrated with local strategy and provision. In each of the schools there is a dedicated P2B room equipped with art and play materials, a fully qualified School Project Manager (a therapist) and a team of up to six trained counsellors who volunteer their time. The specialist teams are based on the school site and provide a range of interventions for pupils, including P2B Talk, themed group work and Circle Time.
There are two therapeutic interventions; one-to-one counselling and therapeutic group work. In addition, P2B offer the team and school staff The Place2Think, a service which provides advice and guidance for teachers and staff providing bespoke training at each school, for example for lunchtime supervisors. They also offer up to five sessions for the parents of children in therapy through their parent partnership work aiming to support the parents with difficulties they may be experiencing using a solution focused approach. The work across the Hub is overseen by a termly steering group, comprising of representatives from each school, the P2B and the Local Authority.
- Queen Park Community School partnership with Brent Centre for Young People under Main Grants Fund
Queens Park Community School is a large secondary school offering an array of extended school provision after school and during school holidays. It is able to provide swift referrals to a wide range of specialist support services. The school serves a diverse community with students coming from a wide variety of backgrounds.
John Lyon’s Charity awarded a grant to Queens Park Community School who had identified the Brent Centre for Young People (BCYP) as a suitable provider to meet their students’ growing emotional needs. The schools and BCYP developed a project that used a combination of group and individual interventions to work with young people to improve their emotional wellbeing and help them better engage with school, have better relationships and make the most of their chances in life. The school chose BCYP because of its developmental emphasis and preventative work in assisting young people avoid long term mental ill health and social exclusion.
- Grasvenor Avenue Infant School under Main Grants Fund
Grasvenor Avenue Infant School is a small infant school in Barnet. For the last three years, the school has been developing a project to help troubled Looked After Children (aged 11-19) keep engaged with their education and provide positive experiences and role models for them.
The “Grasvenor Project” is an innovative way of supporting Looked After Children, particularly those that are struggling to engage with school, or are at risk of exclusion. Young people aged 11-19 are referred to the programme via the Virtual School in Barnet and, after a rigorous risk and needs assessment, are matched with a volunteer mentor, one of the staff at Grasvenor Infant School.
The young person attends the infant school, getting involved in all infant school activities, for one full day each week, alongside their mentor. Not all young people who are referred to the project are deemed suitable for an in-class experience; these young people are assigned a mentor who meets them regularly outside of the school, this is known as the Grasvenor Outreach Programme.
To date, the Grasvenor Project has worked with 20 young people and a variety of positive outcomes have been recorded for the individuals, including the prevention of a permanent exclusion, a return to mainstream class lessons and support into Further Education.
The success of the project necessitated the recruitment of a project co-ordinator, which is currently being funded by John Lyon’s Charity. Four other local primary schools are now keen to get involved and receive referrals of Looked After Children, to be mentored by their own staff teams.