“The FEA are proud to endorse Villiers Park Educational Trust as a Scaling Award Winner. They are a social justice charity, which delivers evidence-led programmes that develop personal and employability skills and raise academic outcomes for young people aged 11-19 from underrepresented backgrounds. Having undertaken significant changes to their delivery model and programmes recently, the panel were very excited by the possibilities for scale for their work and we are excited to support them on the next stages of their journey.”

SIWAN DAVIES, DIRECTOR OF SCALING IMPACT AT THE FAIR EDUCATION ALLIANCE

About Villiers Park Educational Trust

Through our flagship Future Leaders Programme, we enable under-represented young people to explore their future options, design a pathway, and develop personal attributes and employability skills to realise their potential. Utilising a unique blend of coaching, online and face-to-face courses and workshops, and student-led projects, we nurture young people’s curiosity, resilience and creativity to inspire and equip them to become the leaders of tomorrow. We work across regional hubs, centred in areas with high levels of socio-economic deprivation, through established partnerships with schools and colleges; local charities, companies and universities who contribute to the programme through experiences, skills and knowledge exchange and mentoring.

400 young people aged 14-19 will take part in the programme this year and we engage several hundred more students through subject-specific courses, bespoke training and our new green careers project.

93% of Future Leaders achieve GCSE grades C/4 and above against the national average of 67%; and 82% go on to university/foundation year.

Having the FEA’s support will enable focus on strategy, sustainability and operations, including digital. We will begin to develop a new business plan in 2024 so the FEA Scaling Award will be ideal timing to support us to scope and evaluate scaling options. Alongside this, the FEA’s support and expertise in impact and evaluation will help us to develop and embed our evaluation framework.