We are extremely proud at what we have achieved during our last financial year (2023-24).
Our Year in Numbers
We are proud of what we have achieved for children and young people who are facing disadvantage in Bedford, for the pupils in our schools and for people across our community.
Every year brings its challenges, but this year saw VAT, RAAC, a fundamental governance review and the recruitment of a large number of new trustees. At the same time, we more than faced up to the challenge of continuing to deliver a high-quality education, with a high impact bursary programme, our grants programme grew in the face of a major change in demand, and the community programmes that we introduced at the launch of our current year strategy really began to take flight.
Our Accelerator Programme to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils has grown significantly in reach this year, and we are now working with a total of 25 primary schools in a range of ways, supporting children and developing new collaborations so we can share knowledge and have greater impact collectively than we could on our own.
Bedford Giving, the collaborative project and community movement for children and young people which we host, also had a fantastic year. A career mentoring programme was launched which matched 40 young people with mentors from the community, and the first Bedford Giving community panel was created, enabling parent volunteers to decide on projects for younger children in Bedford and to champion their needs and voices.
Our grants programme was able to help improve more people’s lives by giving more than £1.2m to organisations supporting people facing a range of issues, including health and wellbeing, poverty, disability, sport and recreation and crime as well as building stronger communities. This year demand increased with the impact of inflation and stretched grantee budgets, and we faced greater challenges in prioritising the most impactful projects.
All our schools had an outstanding year, with all three senior schools celebrating strong GCSE and A-level results, following a return to pre-pandemic grading standards. Pilgrims’ results were also well above the national average in all key assessments and as ever the vast majority of pupils transferred to one of our schools.
Grantmaking
£1,237,640 given in grants including:
- £950,926 for Relief Grants
- £264,434 for Education Grants
- £22,280 for Recreation Grants
KEY NUMBERS
01 July 2023 – 30 June 2024
£4,152,383
committed to supporting the community
£2,914,743
of social value committed to enable students to attend our schools who show significant ability, but would otherwise be unable to afford the fees.
More Information
READ OUR ANNUAL REPORT
PUBLIC BENEFIT
Visit our impact page to read about how we deliver public benefit to the local community through our Grants Programme, accommodation for older people, community events, our sponsorship of the HEART Academies Trust, as well as the activities of our independent schools and Bursaries Programme.
360 GIVING
