The four areas of focus are:

• Widening Participation in Further and Higher Education
• Truancy, Exclusion and Behaviour Management
• Prisoner Education, and
• New Initiatives

Widening Participation in Further and Higher Education

Aim

To promote access to further and higher education for disadvantaged young people in inner London.

Objective

i.   to increase the number of inner London students from disadvantaged backgrounds successfully participating in further and higher education.

Priorities

a.   work with communities currently under-represented in further and higher education and/or hard to reach learners (e.g. care leavers, young people with learning difficulties).

Applications could involve work with secondary school pupils as well as those in further education and universities.

Truancy, Exclusion and Behaviour Management

Aim

To encourage and support children and young people's attainment through initiatives that help them engage with, and stay in, education.

Objectives

i.   to reduce truancy levels amongst pupils attending primary and secondary schools

ii.   to reduce levels of exclusions and expulsions

iii.   to improve pupil motivation, behaviour and achievement through initiatives that promote children and young people's emotion well being and social development.

Priority

a.   work with primary and secondary schools in challenging circumstances and/or those with higher than average truancy, exclusion or expulsion rates.

Challenging circumstances could include, for example, schools in areas of high social deprivation or in special measures, as well as schools that have higher than average rates of truancy, exclusion or expulsion.

Prisoner Education                                                            

Aim

To reduce re-offending through education and initiatives that promote employability.

Objectives

i.   to improve the literacy and numeracy skills of prisoners and ex-offenders

ii.   to help prisoners and ex-offenders gain skills and education qualifications that will help them into employment.

Priority

a.   work with prisoners and ex-offenders that helps secure employment and prevent re-offending.

New Initiatives

Aim

To influence and improve education policy and practice, both within the Foundation's area of benefit and more widely.

Objectives

i.   to test new and ground breaking approaches to learning that have the potential to enhance and influence education policy and practice

ii.   to support work that focuses on identified needs and gaps in statutory provision

Priorities

a.   projects that are pioneering and original in their approach to teaching or learning and are strategic (relates to objective i)

b.   projects addressing an identified need within a geographical area or learning establishment that are new and innovative in context, i.e. must be a new initiative for the school or borough, but need not be a completely new approach to education (relates to objective ii)

c.   projects that focus on addressing under-achievement in literacy and numeracy in primary and secondary schools (relates to objectives i and ii)

d.   projects seeking to attract greater numbers of young people into the teaching profession (relates to objectives i and ii)

Applicants should tell us which priority their project addresses as well as describing how their project meets that priority.

Applications need not meet more than one priority but, for those that do, applicants are welcome to describe how their application meets each of the priorities.

For further information on projects and areas of work the Foundation cannot support, the Foundation's criteria, and for information on how to make an application, please see our Guidelines for Schools and Organisations.