Athelstan Primary School is a big part of our key neighbourhood of Richmond Park, Sheffield, educating many of our customers’ children aged 4-11. Recently, we’ve provided the school £4,000 as part of our Community Resilience Fund, which has been used to purchase iPads for pupils who do not have the same access to online learning platforms as their peers.
Great Places’ Community Resilience Fund is allocated to each of our regions, for Community Partnership Managers to grant a certain amount to organisations that provide social value. This can match up to various themes, including:
We work closely with Athelstan Primary School as part of our wider community engagement, and so when the new round of funding came, they were in a good position to apply under the Digital Inclusion section.
As the world becomes more and more digital, school is no different, and online learning platforms have proved to be an effective and engaging way for children to learn important subjects like maths, English and science. Athelstan Primary have bought in to a few of these, such as Times-table Rockstars, which often forms part of the pupils’ homework as well as classwork. What makes this really valuable to the school is how fun it is to use; the children enjoy using it and sure enough, a significant improvement has been seen across the board in their learning of this key topic.
Whilst these platforms have proved highly useful, access to them at home is uneven among the pupils of Athelstan Primary, and for a variety of reasons. A percentage of Pupil Premium children are not able to use platforms like Times-tables Rockstars outside of the classroom. Whilst the school had a supply of iPads to remedy this, these were always in use and the demand was always higher.
The school does have a well-attended Breakfast Club, with Pupil Premium children being offered free places. This hour before lessons on school premises can provide the time and resources for these pupils to engage with these online learning platforms before school, by using the iPads provided by the school. Our funding has been used to order twelve new iPads as well as an iPad secure charging trolley so that Athelstan Primary can meet this higher demand, which could enable the children to access the platforms five hours per week beyond the usual school hours. This truly makes a difference with ensuring that Pupil Premium children do not fall behind.
Steven Gayle, our Community and Partnerships Manager who worked closely with the school, said:
Athelstan Primary School serves the Great Places Anchor Neighbourhood of Richmond Park. Athelstan is a key community organisation in the neighbourhood and the majority of children between 5 -11 years will attend the school. Great Places are pleased to be working in partnership with Athelstan Primary to connect with Great customers and promote and develop local community provision.
Zoe Godwin, Business Manager at Athelstan Primary School, had this to say on the funding:
The funding we have received from Great Places is going to be an enormous support for our pupils attending Breakfast Club. We can offer more learning time to targeted pupils to increase engagement and improve their outcomes and confidence. It has been really great meeting and working with Great Places, who have been an excellent support – Thank you!
