Agenda item

Report of the Town Clerk.

The Chairman welcomed Mr Fraser Swift, Head of Learning at Museum of London to the meeting. Mr Swift introduced the report of the Town Clerk regarding Outreach Forum proposals. The Board heard the Outreach Forum had been meeting since autumn 2013, the meetings were positive and productive and involved collaboration across a number of sectors. Mr Swift informed the Board that the Forum had focused on assessing the collective strength of all parties involved, to find methods by which they could work together to benefit schools across London.

The four proposed initiatives of the Outreach Forum were:

• A three year school visits fund to provide schools with grants of up to £300 to help them visit the City; a fund which would involve a simple and quick application process.
• A teacher training programme with the working title ‘Hard Education’ to help teachers tackle difficult subjects such as homophobia, racism and gang culture.
• The creation of a new website to mark the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London (to be launched September 2016).
• A Headteachers event to promote the other three initiatives.

Mr Swift explained that the Forum was requesting from the Board support and financial assistance in implementing the initiatives. The Chairman explained that the Outreach Forum and its initiatives were appropriate to be funded by the Education Board and expressed her support; other Members of the Board also expressed their support for the proposals. The Chairman informed Mr Swift that the Education Board was not capable of contributing to the initiatives immediately, but would support an application to the Policy Initiative Fund for funding the proposals.

RESOLVED – That, the Education Board

• note the contents of the report,
• endorse the proposals for the development of coordinated programmes as outlined in the proposal section of the report,
• endorse the Forum’s request for funding from the Policy Initiatives Fund, and

·        review the Education Boards financial assistance of the Outreach Forum initiatives once resources are made available.