The Community Fund
A collaboration between The Leys & St Faith's Schools Foundation and Wesley's Chapel & Leysian Mission
January 2023 Update
The academic year 2021-2022 saw a total of 28 awards made, totalling £71,598. With the addition of the grants awarded to Wesley's Chapel, The Leys and St Faith's to support partnerships activity, a total of £87,598 was dispersed to support charities, good causes and community activity.
As the fund develops it is particularly pleasing to see that the grants awarded have enabled the establishment of some ongoing community partnerships in Cambridge. The Grass Roots Activity Grants is a three year partnership with Cambridge City Council, with the second grant of £4,000, to fund year two of the project, being recently awarded.
Rowan Cambridge is an arts centre and forest school for adults with learning disabilities. All the artworks are made by the student artists, and the income generated from sales is used to support their work. In February 2023, their art exhibition will be held in the old gym at The Leys, with the premises hire being provided free of charge by the School. A Community Fund grant of £555 was awarded to provide the canvases.
One noticeable feature, since the fund first began accepting applications in September 2020, has been the demand for the support of child mental health. There have been eight applications totalling £13,400 for nine such organisations. It would appear that this is an area of identified need and so The Board may wish to consider whether, going forward, it may be more beneficial to work with one established community partner (possibly funding a larger multi-year project) than with multiple organisations.
iPad Donation
As the new academic year began, the IT Department had a number of pre-loved iPads ready to be donated. These were split between four local primary schools: Swavesey Primary, Shirley Community Primary, Hemingford Grey and Arbury Primary. A grant from the Community Fund ensured that the iPads could be rehomed with enough new suitable cables and chargers.
"I just wanted to email to add my thanks for your amazing generosity, we are so grateful to you for supporting us. The staff and children will be thrilled to have the devices for teaching and learning."
Headteacher, Swavesey Primary School
Grass Roots Activity Grants
Funded by the Community Fund at The Leys and administered by Cambridge City Council’s Active Lifestyles team, this has been the first year of the Grass Roots Activity Grant. The fund has helped to provide financial assistance to low-income families to enable their children to participate in a sport or physical activity opportunity of their choice, in Cambridge City.
The Community Fund supported the Grass Roots programme with £5,250 in 2022 (a £4,000 initial payment and then a £1,250 second instalment, which was gratefully received due to the huge demand for the grants).
172 applications in total were received during the year, with 47 children funded with a grant of between £50 and £250. All successful applicants were in receipt of at least one form of financial support (income support/universal credit), and 46 out of 47 children were in receipt of free school meals.
Analysis of successful applicants
The most popular activities were dance, football, swimming and gymnastics.
Diversity and Inclusion
The selection panel used only the grant eligibility criteria to decide upon successful grant applications. Gender, disability and ethnicity were kept anonymous during the decision-making process.
“A big thank you to the Community Fund at the Leys for funding this grant aid scheme, which has enabled young people in the City to access sport and activity provision, which they otherwise would not have been able to do. We look forward to our partnership together in 2023 to help more families in the City.”
Helen Robbins, Active Lifestyles Officer at the City Council
“Applying and being accepted for the Grass Roots grant was extremely helpful as I am a single parent of twins and my son's football is very important to him - he’s been in the team for 6 years. It was a huge relief not to struggle to find the funds.”
Burrough Green C of E Primary School Swimming Pool Project
The Community Fund supported Burrough Green Primary School with the refurbishment of their swimming pool. The grant received went towards the purchase and installation of a replacement pool liner, pool side decking, a new hose pipe for the vacuum system, and the refurbishment of the changing facilities and pool plant equipment. The pool officially reopened on Monday 6 June. The school was extremely proud to share the good news and it was welcomed throughout the local community. BGPS children were delighted to be able to swim twice a week as their PE activity during school. Some children had never been swimming before and the benefit to them was significant. The PTA ran after school swimming clubs for all BGPS children, making excellent use of the school pool throughout the summer. Children often swam twice a day!
"It was heart-warming to hear about their excellent progress over the summer term, quickly acquiring water familiarisation and safety skills, and then progressing to basic swimming techniques. By supporting this project, the Community Fund has made a real and lasting impact on their lives".
Burrough Green PTA Committee
Cambridge Scouts
The 27th Cambridge Scouts provides scouting in Cherry Hinton, helping young people to learn skills for life through fun and adventure. They received a grant to support a trip for approximately 20-25 young people to ESSA, a charity providing water sports activities. Thanks to a grant of £1000, the camp became more affordable for local families and enabled more Scouts to attend. The first weekend in July, 27 Scouts and three adults spent the weekend at a Paddle Sports Camp. Their aim was to complete the BSC Discover award, which covers all aspects of handling a kayak, including launching and recovery. They all had great fun on SUPs and Mega-SUPs and built rafts from barrels and staves, some more successfully than others!
"It was a fantastic weekend and we were blessed with great weather. The Scouts were able to take part in an activity that we would normally struggle to offer in Cambridge, many for the first time, and their appetite for more water sports is huge".
Andrew Varley, Scout Leader
The Kings Hedges Family Support Project
Funding from the Community Fund helped launch the Mini MAGIC programme as a partner programme for the children of parents attending the established MAGIC Parent programme. The MAGIC Parent programme supports vulnerable families where parents need in depth, targeted support focusing on mental wellbeing, bonding and attachment, behaviour and development, confidence and self-esteem. Whilst the parents attend the MAGIC sessions, their children attend the Mini MAGIC sessions.
Over the year, 30 children attended the Mini MAGIC sessions, ranging in age from one to four years, in small groups of six at a time. The funding has allowed for an increased staff ratio, providing the opportunity for individual attention and encouragement when taking part in meaningful play. Family circumstances mean that some of the children have never been away from their only care giver, who is often isolated, with no family or friends to offer parenting support. The initial separation from the parent can be difficult, but over the weeks the children become more independent, building trust in other safe adults.
Case Study 1
Here the task is, "What can you find to try to stick to this sticky-back plastic sheet?" This simple activity created lots of discussion, fun and questions, such as, "Why does this spanner stick? Why doesn't the car stick? The balls will stick if placed carefully, but not if thrown." This activity encouraged lots of learning together as well as divergent thinking, "What else is possible?", while exploring many other possible solutions. This was an excellent activity for supporting the Creating and Thinking Critically characteristic of Effective Early Learning in the EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage).
Case Study 2
A family needed to attend MAGIC and Mini MAGIC due to ongoing domestic abuse and mental health issues. Due to historical childhood trauma the oldest child, who transitioned to reception class in September 2022, has speech and language delay, behaviour issues and difficulties with self-regulation.
Mum's progress has been significant, she is back on medication and a mental health assessment by the doctor has been completed. After attending the course, on her own initiative, mum began reading a book on attachment and bonding, and realised that due to environmental and health issues, this had impacted on her child's needs and caused difficulties. She even took an activity from the book and wanted to show this to other parents.
The oldest child interacted with staff and activities in Mini MAGIC really well. Time was spent on speech and language, keeping activities multi-sensory and within his interest base. He gained confidence, self-esteem and enhanced communication skills during these sessions.
"Due to the huge amount of work we have done with this child, we were able to work with the school when he started and made suggestions on how to support him and ease the transition. The child has potential for good academic attainment, with support and understanding, whilst the family heal and learn."
KHFSP Team
Turtle Dove, Cambridge
Turtle Dove works to improve the future of young women aged 14-24 years through a combination of youth support and work experience, providing opportunities in hospitality and working as part of a team. Many are currently not in education, employment, training, or are at risk of falling into this category (NEET).
In early 2022 The Community Fund contributed £4,750 for their project,"Delivering Training and Personal Development Sessions", including:-
- Monthly open training sessions
- Quarterly peer support sessions
- Weekly training sessions specific to Alternative Education referrals
Midway update
Six of the monthly open training sessions were held on the topics of, "How to be a Barista", "Introduction to running events", "Introduction to social media for the Hospitality Sector", "Theatre Stewarding", and "Food Safety. Ten young women attended these sessions and professionals from local companies, e.g. Crane Events, ADC Theatre, Plextek and Cool Safety, gave their time to offer the training to the young women.
Three peer support sessions were delivered, including a trip to Bowling and Nandos to kickstart our peer support sessions, a coffee and cake meeting to say goodbye to a previous Emotional Support Worker and a trip to Tradizione to introduce our new Emotional Support Worker. These sessions were attended by twelve young women.
A new Alternative Education partnership has been established with Quy Mill Hotel, with their Afternoon Tea offer being the focus of the training and work experience. In-house training for this has been developed, a new staff member has been recruited to be the Alternative Education lead, and there have been numerous enquiries for referrals from schools and other agencies such as CPFT (Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust) and the Youth Offending Service.
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