Our Closing the Education Gap Fund supports projects that help address educational inequalities for children and young people across Kensington and Chelsea. Over the next 3 years (2025-2028), we will be funding 8 impactful projects working with young people at risk of exclusion or poor attainment.
Closing the Education Gap
Our 2024 research report, ‘A Deepening Divide’, identified significant inequalities in both educational opportunities and outcomes for children in our community. While 47% of children in the borough attend private schools, 1 in 4 children are living in poverty and their educational attainment is negatively impacted by a combination of factors including overcrowding, temporary accommodation, lack of resources and mental health pressures.
Despite having some of the best performing state schools in the country, the borough still has some of the highest inequalities in educational attainment for young people who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Our research identified that these outcomes have been further exacerbated by poor mental health, increasing child poverty rates - with a 50% increase in children receiving free school meals over the past five years - and overstretched school resources.
Since we published our initial research in 2021, the borough has dropped from the highest rate of permanent exclusions in London, to 17th on the list. However temporary suspensions remain high; K+C has the 7th highest rate of suspensions amongst London boroughs and there is evidence that these are extremely damaging to children receiving them. Poor life outcomes for excluded school children are well documented and evidenced, with a high risk of mental health challenges, unemployment, youth offending and prison.
Our Closing the Education Gap Fund seeks to address these inequalities and improving educational outcomes for all children and young people in our community.
As part of our commitment to giving the community a voice in the social investments we make in the borough, we recruited, trained and worked with a panel of 10 young people with lived experience of exclusions or struggling at school. Our youth panel brought their unique life perspectives and education experiences to the grant assessment process, designing criteria and scoring applications.
Building trust, developing strong relationships, and working with people with shared experiences emerged as key themes for the panel and all the projects chosen demonstrated these qualities. In addition to providing us with a great insight into the problems our Fund is attempting to solve, being part of the youth panel offered the young people involved a great introduction to what charities do, grant making and paid work experience.
The youth panel selected the following projects, which the Foundation is committed to fundraising for over the next 3 years:
ECYC – a cross-borough partnership between the Earl's Court Youth Club and Baraka Community Association delivering after-school tutoring in core subjects to under 16s at highest risk of underachievement. (£67,900/year)
Hornimans Adventure Playground – offering on-the-job training, mentoring, and support for young people at Hornimans and Little Wormwood Scrubs Adventure Playgrounds. (£21,000 average/ year)
Kensington Impact CIC – an after school tuition and mentoring programme supporting children and young people aged 5 to 24 and linking them up with sporting opportunities. (£20,000/year)
MO1 Youths – a cross-borough programme delivering one-to-one and small-group tutoring in core subjects (maths, English, science), trauma-informed mentoring and support for parents/carers to promote stronger home and school links. (£24,500/year)
The Reanella Trust – providing mentoring and emotional support to young people from the black community suffering from bipolar disorder, helping them reintegrate back into mainstream education. (£19,200 for one year)
St Clements and St James Trust – delivering one-to-one emotional support sessions for primary school children at risk of exclusion, low attainment, or poor mental health. (£10,000/year for two years)
St Francis of Assisi School Charity – funding a Learning Mentor to work intensively with children facing multiple disadvantage and supporting them to become academically and emotionally ready to successfully transition to secondary school. (£20,000 for one year)
Youth Action Alliance – a one-to-one mentoring programme supporting young people academically and emotionally and linking them up with to other sports/arts and work based organisations and opportunities. (£29,000 average/year)
