Community grants > Grant guidelines > Programmes & priorities

Programmes and priorities: Education

‘The promotion of education’

The Bedford Charity since its inception has had a key role in developing and enhancing educational opportunities in the Borough. This interest is reflected in the educational programmes that comprise a major element of our community grants activities.

Our awards are generally made to support:

• collaborative projects, enabling significant numbers of young people in the Borough to have access to new and valuable learning opportunities.
  
  

• projects that focus on: enriching the educational experiences of younger people; enabling older people to remain active learners; provision for those with additional support needs to be able to access educational and training opportunities.
  
  

• innovative and potentially replicable projects initiated by schools in the maintained sector and other educational establishments, where there is no statutory obligation for funding.
  
  

• educational projects where an award may help leverage in significant additional funding from other sources.

A small grants programme that makes awards to individuals who are undertaking postgraduate or continuing education studies has been established by the Charity. There must generally be a strong vocational element to the chosen course of study. Specific guidelines, and details of the application process, are available from us on request.
Additional information about grants to individuals.

Examples of projects that have been granted awards in recent years:

Employment Opportunities for People with Disabilities
Bedfordshire “Job Ready” Training Course
£40,000 over 2 years
A grant to pay an experienced trainer to take fifty people with a wide range of disabilities and health problems through a flexible, individually tailored ten week course. The training aims to enhance job readiness levels and improve employment prospects.

Hastingsbury Upper School
Specialist Business and Enterprise College Status
£25,000
The Charity acted as a sponsor for the school’s successful bid to become a specialist Business and Enterprise school and thereby enabled Hastingsbury to attract significant amounts of government funding. The school will use its specialist schools funding and status to become a Business and Enterprise Centre for Kempston. This centre will raise academic standards for students attending the school but will also make facilities and expertise available to students at other local schools and the wider Kempston community.

Hazeldene Lower School
Meeting Room Project
£4,500
To develop a pastoral space for meetings and education related activities with parents and representatives of other agencies, such as social services and health.  Total costs of the project were £60,000, and the award was instrumental in unlocking a variety of discretionary statutory support, including Seed Challenge funding.

Bedford Museum and Cecil Higgins Art Gallery
Education Service
£36,000 over 5 years
Towards the salary costs of the Education Officer, enabling the provision of a variety of educational activities for a wide range of ages, particularly school and pre-school visits.