I am raising £75,000 for my school, St Frideswides Primary School, https://www.stfrideswides.co.uk , to fund another small groups teacher​. This method has been particularly successful for us​ and is ​s​upported by ​wider research from the Education Endowment Foundation: Working in small groups: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/small-group-tuition

​We are a part of the Oxford Diocesan Schools Trust (ODST). They manage over 40 schools and educate ​o​ver ​8,000 children. The trust will hold and manage money raised as restricted funds.

The new teacher would work with Year 1 and 2 children ​and be provide​d with the same logistical and learning support which has been instrumental in my small group teaching. ​Our target impact will be at least 4 months of additional progress per child.​ Regular, standard assessments ​a​re used in our school to measure ​children's progress and evaluate our teaching.

The story so far:

On 24th May at 8.45am I started a ​fundraising bike ride from the gates of our Oxford to Land’s End and back in 8 days, 600 miles, with my tent and sleeping bag… Ride pictures here on JustGiving St FridesRide

Why?

I believe primary schools provide the most important part of a child’s education. If they can understand what they read, and do the Maths they need when they get to secondary school, they will pass GCSE’s and A levels and have greater opportunity to fulfil their potential, for themselves and for society. The costs of a failed education are real and quantifiable.

My experience

The vast majority of my teaching has been Year 5 and 6 small group interventions in Maths and English​. This has proved to have a significant positive effect on learning in our school, and is fun for both teachers and pupils.

My experience with interventions:

In September 2022 in Year 6, 25 children were identified as being at risk of not achieving their potential. 46% of the children had not made expected progress in the previous year and several had had a change in home circumstances and thus become disengaged with their learning. So we provided small group interventions with a focus on Maths and English comprehension catch-up.

The headline impact for our children was:

96% made expected progress in Maths and 40% of made rapid progress.

Seven children,previously at high risk of not passing, passed their Maths SATs

Of the ten children who took part in reading interventions, 8 made good progress

Why support St Frideswides?

We are in the bottom 5% of Oxfordshire schools by income

Our school has double the national number of special needs pupils for this size of school.

74% of the learners at the school are from ethnic minorities.

36% have English as an additional language.

Those entering the school after normal entry age are usually new arrivals to the county, or are new to the country.

Children transferring to the school are often working at below national expectations in both English and Maths.

Why do we need the money?

When I started in 2022-2023, 65% of my cost was funded by the National Tutoring Programme ; this fell to 50% in 2023-2024. The fund is now closed for 2024-25. The £100’s of millions of unused funds ( it had been chronically underused as it required matched funding from schools who have no spare cash…) has gone towards teachers’ inflation linked pay rises we believe …

So... that's why I am fundraising for an additional interventions teacher for 3 years, working 3 days per week, starting in the 2024-2025 academic year.

I have committed to working 4 days per week once our new teacher is appointed but donating 25% of my employment cost towards our fund. Over the three years this equates to approximately £15,000.

If you can, please help us. If you have more questions contact me. If you wish to donate, use the JustGiving link above to StFridesRide. Watch out for the default “tip” setting which gives an extra 17.5% to JustGiving. It is editable.

Please think about regular giving, it can reduce the initial pain and given our longer term objectives really works for us. Andy