posted by Rhonda McFarlane, Funding Officer, Chief Executive’s Department

Connecting Classrooms Fund Opens for Applications (UK)

The British Council’s Connecting Classrooms fund has opened up for applications and schools have until 29th July 2016 to apply. Grants of £3,000 are available to enable teachers who have completed the British Council’s ‘Teaching Core Skills’ training programme to visit a partner schools overseas. Each visit will involve participating in an event, arranged in country by the British Council. The events will bring together schools from the UK, their partners and other local schools to share experiences and good practice of implementing core skills within the curriculum. Schools participating in the connecting classrooms programme will have to work with a schools based in one of the following countries. Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Middle East & North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.

To be eligible to apply, the UK will have identified a partner school in one of these countries.

https://schoolsonline.britishcouncil.org/about-schools-online/about-programmes/connecting-classrooms/apply

Holiday Grants for Children (UK)

The Henry Smith’s Charity has announced that Holiday Grant for Children Programme has re-opened for applications. Schools, youth groups and not for profit organisations can apply for grants towards holidays or outings within the UK for children aged 13 and under who are from deprived areas or have a disability. Applications can be considered for holidays or outings that have the objective of providing children with a break they would not otherwise have the opportunity to experience. The maximum grant is usually £2,500 for any one trip. Grants are normally limited to a maximum of two-thirds of the total cost of a trip as the charity would expect some local partnership funding to be in place. Activities will need to take place between the 1 September – 31 December 2016.

Recently funded projects include:

• All Saints CE (Aided) Primary School which received grant of £980 towards the cost of a four-night residential trip to an adventure centre in Shropshire for a group of school children from a deprived area of Wokingham;
• Abijah Trust which received a grant of £1,000 towards one year’s running costs of an after-school project for disadvantaged children in Portsmouth; and
• Baysgarth School which received a grant of £1,000 towards a three-day trip to an adventure activity centre for a group of disadvantaged children from Lincolnshire.

The closing date for applications will be the 18th November 2016.

http://www.henrysmithcharity.org.uk/holiday-grants-for-children.html

Innovative Geography Teaching Grants (UK)

The Royal Geographical Society is a learned society with the aim of advancing geographical science and supporting its practitioners. One of the Society’s key aims is to enhance the teaching and learning of geography in secondary schools. The Society works on behalf of schools providing activities, training, advice and resources. Their main focus is on 12 to 19-year-olds in schools and colleges. Teachers that have an innovative idea for promoting the teaching of Geography in stimulating way are able to apply for an Innovative Geography Teaching grant from the Royal Society.

The grant is open to all geography teachers working in secondary schools and with a university collaborator and aims to enhance pupils’ geography education in a stimulating way. Two grants, each of £1,000, will be awarded annually to each Teacher-Higher Education team.

For example, Raphael Heath (The Royal High School, Bath) received funding for ‘Investigating the geography of crime’. The purpose of these resources are to provide teachers and students with the information and skills required to be able to conduct a sophisticated investigation into UK crime patterns using GIS mapping techniques using primary and secondary data.

The next application deadline is the 15th February 2017.

http://www.rgs.org/OurWork/Grants/Teaching/Innovative+Geography+Teaching+Grants.htm

The Classical Association Grants (UK)

The Classical Association awards grants in the region of £60,000 each year to classical projects and conferences, mainly in the UK. The Association will consider applications for subventions to summer schools and to institutions offering extra-mural courses in Greek, Latin and classical civilization; bursaries for teachers attending courses abroad, notably the British School at Athens Easter Course; support of Greek and Latin reading competitions arranged by CA branches; support of regional Greek or Roman days or of school conferences; subventions to academic conferences, particularly when of broad appeal and held in major centres, with a view especially to assisting students, teachers and East European scholars to attend.

The next closing date for applications is the 1st September 2016.

http://www.classicalassociation.org/grants.html

Support for Schools to Set Up Breakfast Clubs (UK)

Magic breakfast is a registered charity that aim to end hunger as a barrier to education in UK Schools by providing healthy breakfast food to children most in need. A “magic” breakfast is designed to give children energy, protein, vitamins and minerals, is low in sugar, salt and fat and complies with the Government’s school food standards. The charity believes that no child should start the school day too hungry to concentrate and is currently accepting applications from schools across the UK with over 35% Free School Meal eligibility, or 50% Ever 6 FSM.

St Eugene de Mazenod Primary School’s Magic Breakfast club in the London Borough of Camden and Forest Academy is a primary school on the Kendray estate in Barnsley are among the schools that benefited from the charity.

Applications can be made at any time. The charity does currently have a waiting list of schools but is committed to reaching each of them as soon as funding is available.

https://www.magicbreakfast.com/apply-for-magic-breakfast-provision

Funding to Support Education in Impoverished Areas (UK & Worldwide)

The British & Foreign Schools Society (BFSS), which supports educational projects in the UK and around the world, has announced that the next closing date for applications is the 1st September 2016. The Society supports organisations within the UK and internationally that reach out to children in remote or impoverished areas, improving inclusively in education and providing much-needed facilities. The Society normally makes grants for educational projects totaling about £600,000 in any one year. The majority (85% of grants) are made to charities and educational bodies (with charitable status). Schools wishing to apply need to have either charitable status or “exempt charity” status.

Previous projects supported include:

• a grant of £10,000 to the Bloomfield Learning Centre. The Centre assesses and teaches 6 to 16 year olds with specific learning difficulties from areas of socio economic disadvantage in London specially Southwark, Lambeth, Islington, Camden and Greenwich;
• a 2 year grant of £26,624 to Charity: Groundwork Greater Nottingham for family developmental play sessions for children in temporary hostel; and
• a grant of £5,000 to the Lyric Hammersmith to support a programme of work for schools in West London to enable disadvantaged children to engage in regular cultural activity.

http://www.bfss.org.uk/grants/

Partnership in Learning Fund (UK)

UK-German Connection an organisation dedicated to increasing contacts and understanding between young people in the UK and Germany has announced that its Partnerships in Learning funding programme is open for applications. The programme supports UK-German school partnerships to deliver educational activities in both countries, including mutual visits. Schools that provide a range of relevant and interesting activities around one focus or a range of related themes, can receive funding allowing pupils to experience intercultural learning first-hand.

The maximum grant available is £5,000, which is to be shared between the participating schools to support costs such as travel and accommodation for reciprocal partner visits, project resources and joint activities. Applicants must contribute at least 25% of the overall eligible activity costs through participants’ contributions and other sources of funding.

For example, Wishaw/Shotts Youth Exchange Group in North Lanarkshire and Kreisjugendring Wunsiedel worked on an exchange to promote European citizenship and investigate what life was like living on a border.

The next deadline for applications is the 31st October 2016.

http://www.ukgermanconnection.org/partnershipsinlearning

UK-German Connection – Host a Teacher from Germany (UK)

UK German Connection is a bilateral government initiative for school and youth links which is dedicated to increasing contacts and understanding between young people in the UK and Germany. As part of this programme all UK schools and FE colleges have until the 21st September 2016 to apply to host a teacher from Germany for two or three weeks during the academic year, at no cost. The UK coordinating teacher does not need to be a teacher of German, and German does not need to be on the school’s curriculum; visiting teachers are either teachers of English or have good knowledge of the English language. Visits offer the opportunity to broaden the horizons of pupils, break down any existing prejudices and increase pupils’ intercultural awareness.

http://www.ukgermanconnection.org/HOSTATEACHER

Funding for School Expeditions and Field Work (UK)

The Frederick Soddy Trust, has announced that the next application deadline for grants to support expeditions and field work is the 18th September 2016. Grants of between £500 and £2,000 are available to schools or universities, or from institutions such as scout groups to support expeditions that study “the whole life of an area” with a major emphasis on current human geography. The Trust cannot support research into wild life or environments. To be eligible for support, the expedition or fieldwork team can be of any size, normally greater than two, though on occasions the Trustees have supported a team of two.

Recently £200 to £500 grants have been given to the following schools: Carrington Primary School; Falinge Park High School; Heron Primary School; Hinde House.

http://www.soddy.org/expeditions.htm

Support for Environmental Outreach Education (UK)

Schools and colleges can receive up to 80% towards the costs of providing environmental outreach education for groups of disadvantaged young people through the Field Studies Council’s Kids Fund. The Field Studies Council is an independent educational charity committed to raising awareness about the natural world and works through a network of residential and day Centres in the UK to provide outreach education and training. It helps disadvantaged young people to attend a course who may otherwise be excluded due to some form of disadvantage – health, mobility, deprivation or financial. One free staff/adult place is provided for every 12 young people; additional adults pay 20% +VAT. This includes all equipment, tuition and waterproof hire costs. Food and accommodation are included for residential courses.

For example, the Council supported Buckinghamshire Extended Schools Service to enable KS2 children from primary schools in High Wycombeto take part in environmental activities based in their own school grounds. The schools are in communities where opportunities for outdoor learning are limited. The aim is to increase the children’s understanding and enjoyment of the environment and help them see the opportunities to enjoy nature without having to travel somewhere special. So far we have run activities for around 150 children in four different schools. Activities have included building bird houses, invertebrate studies, environmental games and earth education activities.

The closing date for applications is the 1st November 2016.

http://www.field-studies-council.org/about.aspx

UK-German Connection – Celebration Fund (UK)

Primary and secondary schools, FE colleges and youth groups that have an established partnership with a similar organisation in Germany can apply for a grant of up to £1,500 to help fund celebrations of their partnership. Grants can be used towards activity-related costs, e.g. materials, resources, dissemination activities; and travel, accommodation and subsistence costs related to the celebratory activity. Applications from clusters of schools or youth groups or cross-sector clusters are also welcome. Priority will be given to schools and groups who have not previously received funding from UK-German Connection. Applicants must contribute at least 25% of the overall eligible activity costs through participants’ contributions and other sources of funding.

For example, Durham County Council and Kreis Wesel turned their diamond jubilee into a creative art competition: they got schools aboard to create a design for a donkey statue, the symbol of the Kreis Wesel.

The closing date for applications is the 31st October 2016.

http://www.ukgermanconnection.org/celebratoryfund

B & Q Waste Donation Scheme (UK)

Schools, charities and community groups can apply for products and waste materials through the B&Q Waste Donate Scheme. B&Q operates this Scheme through all of its stores within the UK. B&Q donates products and waste materials they haven’t been able to sell for re-use such as slightly damaged tins of paint, off-cuts of timber, odd rolls of wallpaper and end-of-range materials. Donated products should benefit the local community and the environment and cannot be resold. Due to its Health and Safety scheme, electrical, petrol and gas items are not available for donation.

Applications must be made directly to B&Q stores.

http://www.diy.com/corporate/community/waste-donation/

Funding for Music Creators (UK)

Musicians as well as bands; ensembles; collectives; charities; local authority and schools; etc can apply for grants of up to £5,000 to support the creation and performance of outstanding new music. The funding is being provided by the Performing Rights Society (PRS) for Music Foundation, the UK’s leading funder of new music across all genres. Funding is available to any music creator such as songwriters; composers; and solo artists; etc as well as not-for-profit organisation that support the creation and performance of outstanding new music.

For example, AudioActive, a registered charity working to challenge disadvantage and enhance the development of children and young people by providing high quality creative and musical experiences throughout the South East, received funding. Funding was used to deliver music workshops to children and young people, with the aim of helping to nurture talented young musicians. Drake Music Scotland received funding to provide a wide range of educational projects, using both conventional instruments and inclusive technology in innovative ways.

The closing date for applications is the 3rd October 2016.

http://www.prsformusicfoundation.com/funding/the-open-fund/the-open-fund-for-music-creators/

Nurturing Talent – Time to Shine Fund (Scotland)

Creative Scotland and Young Scot have announced that the next deadline for applications to the Nurturing Talent – Time to Shine Fund is the 28th August 2016. The Creative Scotland Nurturing Talent – Time to Shine Fund aims to support young people aged 14-20 who need financial help in developing their talent within the creative industry. Funding will be awarded to those young people who demonstrate enthusiasm, ambition and talent in their chosen field and who would benefit from financial help to develop this further. Individual applicants and groups of individuals can apply for grants of between £50 and £600.

Funding is available to young people aged between 14 and 20 who live in Scotland and wish to develop their talent in drama; dance; music; film; visual arts; literature and the digital arts.

http://www.youngscot.org/information/learning/nurturing-talent-time-to-shine-fund/