Twenty-four vulnerable students attending schools in the Fulham area are being supported by individual grants from the Foundation that will assist with aspects of their personal and educational development.

Covering items such as the purchase of school uniforms and shoes, essential equipment for use in class, help with the the cost of travel to school and access to additional meals, the grants will help students to improve their school attendance, participate more fully in class activity, to better access the curriculum and improve engagement with their peers. Increased levels of confidence and a sense of personal achievement will assist them to reach their full potential as young adults through their school experience.

Staff at the schools involved will be managing the individual grants and review students’ progress on a termly basis to enable continuing financial assistance to be directed where it is needed.

Fulham Cross Girls’ School is a fully inclusive school which welcomes students of all abilities and proactively supports students with a variety of additional needs. Currently there are 36 SEND (special education need and disability) students in the Years 10 and 11 critical exam years and a further 7 students with an Educational, Health and Care Plan.

The Foundation will be supporting the school’s specialist team with IT equipment and a library for students with dyslexic and other special needs.

The school’s SEND team consists of several specialists. Two highly experienced teachers in the areas of Special Education Needs and Psychology have worked in the profession for 25 years between them and are qualified in areas such as Cognition, Learning Needs, Communication, Interaction Needs, and literacy and numeracy. Four further teaching assistants specialise in helping students with complex needs in Years 10 and 11, their transition to 6th form and dyslexia and literacy. In addition to this they have specialist skills in Mental Health Needs, Science Specialist support and English as an additional language.

The Special Educational Needs Department at FCGS is extremely successful – students make progress well beyond expectations and compared to similar students nationally.

The technology support will provide thirteen durable units designed to support the special requirements of students to facilitate the learning and skills required to prepare for GCSEs. The programme will promote independence and confidence that will ultimately allow students to show what they are capable of and help them to reach their full potential in their exams.

The grant will also be used to assist the school to build up a library of books for students who are dyslexic or have another learning need by providing age-appropriate books aimed at students who may have a low reading age but require books with appropriate content. The aim is to resource the library with ‘class packs’ – sets of the same books which can be read together as a class, enabling teacher-led discussions as would happen in any other English lesson. The class pack books cover a range of titles and a range of reading ages. Simplified versions of set texts for example dyslexia-friendly versions will also be possible.

The library will deliver measurable impact in these areas:

• allow access to age-appropriate books
• encourage reluctant readers to read – crucial to their progress all across the curriculum
• allow SEN teachers to plan whole class activities using the same full length book (as opposed to extracts)
• support mainstream English teaching with a better understanding of set texts
• allow students to have appropriate reading material with them at all times (all FCGS students have to have a reading book in their bag for quiet reading sessions) to enable participation in independent reading
• improve levels of confidence

Discussion with SEND teachers, book reviews and work specifically related to set texts results in increased knowledge and understanding of the book in terms of subject matter and linguistic analysis, and reading ages improve at a faster level than before.