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STRATEGIC AIMS AND OBJECTIVES GOLIATH TRUST

“A Step in the Right Direction”www.goliathtrust.com | @GoliathTrust

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“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”NELSON MANDELA


The Goliath Trust was established in August 2017. The Trust seeks to raise funds to help address the persistent problem of educational underachievement in Northern Ireland’s most disadvantaged areas. Members of the Trust have consulted with schools, educators, parents, the churches, community leaders and wider civic society to identify how we can help.

Our mission is to provide targeted financial support to schools that are most in need.

OUR MISSION—

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Rt Rev Alan AbernethyMr David Campbell Prof. Peter Finn Father Gerard FoxMs Nuala HaydenMr Ray HaydenRt Rev Norman Hamilton Mr John McCaffreyMs Deirdre McDonaldDr Alasdair McDonnell Rev Dr Frederick Munce Mr Jackie Redpath

The Goliath Trust appointed an Executive Director, Ms Caroline McNeill, for an initial one-year term in September 2017 to establish the governance and operations of the Trust, to act as Secretary to the Trustees and to advance our mission.

CONTACT:Email: [email protected] Tel: 028 90 209218/07472355155

THE FOUNDING BOARD MEMBERS OF THE GOLIATH TRUST ARE—


Some 78,000 (31%) of children are significantly underachieving at primary school level, and this is most apparent in disadvantaged communities where the legacy of the Troubles has left an indelible mark. 20% of young people leave post-primary school with poor reading, writing and arithmetic skills. With targeted intervention in selected schools, the Goliath Trust will work to improve levels of educational attainment. Our focus will rest firmly on raising funds to support schools situated in areas of high disadvantage. We believe that if we don’t address this problem now, it will result in adverse consequences for our entire society in the years ahead.

In our first year of operation the Goliath Trust will work with 12 primary schools in the Belfast area (listed in Appendix one). Members of the Goliath team have visited the schools and developed strong working relationships with their governors, principals, staff and the neighbouring community.

We do not intend to impose educational solutions in the schools. Rather our work will be guided and led by expert educators in the schools and elsewhere who are acutely aware of the difficulties pupils and communities are encountering. This work will assist the Goliath Trust Board in determining the appropriate size and type of grants to be distributed.

At the end of our first year, it is envisioned that the Goliath Trust will commission research to determine how we gauge the effectiveness of the Trust’s interventions.

CONTEXT—

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The Goliath Trust will award grants to schools where targeted support can make a material difference to the lives of children and their educational attainment levels. Our work will lead to:

The Goliath Trust will, in conjunction with schools and educators, identify programmes and initiatives that will help improve educational attainment levels. These will include:

• Strengthening engagement between schools and the local community;

• Promotion of better parental and familial involvement with schools;

• Encouraging schools to adopt collaborative approaches and;

• Encourage mentorship schemes between Principals and the sharing of best practice.

• Morale boosting initiatives for staff, pupils and parents;

• Better special needs provision;• Cognitive and emotional

awareness;• Numeracy, literacy and

language and; • More play space and

improved facilities.

PLANNED INTERVENTIONS—


The Goliath Trust have identified some initiatives, which educators believe are already working well. We aim to promote the following programmes, but this list is not exhaustive:

• Professional development programme (OLEVI);

• Mental health and resilience building through nurture and sensory units including recognition of emotional intelligence;

• IT, coding programmes, DigiKids;• Special Educational needs and

language teachers provision and; • Facilitation of mentorship

between principals and facilitation of collaboration between schools.

NEW PROJECTS—

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The Goliath Trust is mindful of the changing face of Northern Ireland and the challenge to effectively assimilate newcomer students into school communities. Indeed in the year 2015/16, the Government recorded a total of 12,932 newcomer pupils across all schools, primary and post-primary. One of the schools we are working with has faced racist attacks and the associated stigma. The Goliath Trust intends to help schools who feel that their work is undermined and obstructed by prejudice and ignorance.

Our sole concern is tackling educational disadvantage in Northern Ireland and enabling young people here to aspire for more, pursue their ambitions and become more engaged citizens.

We are aware from our consultations with educators of some outstanding programmes that are already operating in schools. Vital to the success of many of these initiatives is collaboration and cooperation between schools. The ethos of sharing

WORKING WITH THE COMMUNITY—

and building partnerships is clearly growing across the Education sector in Northern Ireland, and the Goliath Trust will do everything we can to build on that excellent progress. At a very practical level, the sharing of resources can improve cooperation and communication between schools. The sharing of best practice between schools is also vitally important to improving educational outcomes and will be promoted at every opportunity. The Goliath Trust will aim to support a collaborative style approach.


One model that is working well in practice is a triangular approach to mentorship where a lead school works with two other schools to help strengthen performance. This approach worked exceptionally well where the principal in the lead school has regular communication with the principals of the two other schools who require mentorship, guidance and support. We hope to replicate this model where possible.

From our consultations, we have also deduced that not enough school principals and teachers are communicating with each other or don’t always have a forum to do so. In order to facilitate conversations between Principals, the Goliath Trust have arranged and will continue to facilitate meetings. These will provide an opportunity to share experiences, best practice and ideas to work much better together.

PARTNERSHIPS—

“20% of young people leave post-primary school with poor reading, writing and arithmetic skills.”

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In September 2017 a report into educational underachievement in Northern Ireland was published. The report examined the effects of deprivation on academic attainment and focused on seven of the most deprived wards. This report illustrates what the Goliath Trust has heard directly from school leaders. They are telling us that solutions to educational underachievement are not just to be found within the educational environment; the view is that societal issues are pivotal.

Research has shown that closing the achievement gap requires a combination of early intervention, better targeting of resources to the most deprived children and measuring what makes the difference in children’s learning and development from birth. The early years in a child’s life are vitally important for determining their later educational outcomes.

Research has further shown that children living in relative poverty often start school at an academic disadvantage. By the age of three, a significant gap in vocabulary and cognitive test scores can already be measured between low-income children and their more affluent peers. If children do not learn to communicate, speak and listen from an early age, along with developing their understanding of the meaning of numbers and words, they will struggle to learn and grow when they begin formal education. That is why the Goliath Trust is focusing on primary schools during our first year of operation.

2

• Adequate levels of parental or familial support and encouragement;

• A child’s resilience; • A child’s sense of connectedness

to their community and active local youth and;

• Community work programmes.

Educational attainment is enhanced with: 1

1:The Investigating Links in Achievement and Deprivation (ILiAD) report was commissioned by OFMdFM in March 2012, with a draft received by the Department in 2015. 2: Carter-Wall and G Witfield, the Role of Aspirations, Attitudes and Behaviour in Closing the Educational Attainment Gap, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2012, p2, http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/education-achieve-ment-poverty-summary.pdf

TACKING EDUCATIONAL UNDERACHIEVEMENT—


“Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace.”

CONFUCIUS

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Northern Ireland is facing an increasingly difficult financial climate, and our children stand to lose out unless we find better ways to support them. The Goliath Trust is aware of the excellent organisations that already exist to address educational disadvantage. However, they cannot tackle this issue alone.

The Goliath Trust will not be able to deliver all the solutions, but we recognise the pressing need to begin to bridge the educational gap that so clearly exists. Our children’s future depends on it.

Education can help unlock the potential of economically and socially disadvantaged children. Children starting primary school in 2017-2018 will have grown up in an economic recession and against the backdrop of reduced public expenditure. To allow the current reduced economic conditions to limit the educational prospects of our children is something none of us can afford.

We want to instil aspiration among young people in Northern Ireland and unlock their educational potential. The benefits to our society will, we believe be innumerable.

If we succeed in supporting our first 12 schools and by consequence the surrounding communities, then this will have a ripple effect on health, well-being and reconciliation. Business and the economy will benefit in the long term too from a more confident group of young, skilled workers who are ambitious for their future.

We cannot waste the opportunity in front of us. It is time to act, to make an ambitious and distinctive effort to tackle the inequity that exists in Northern Ireland’s education system.

INVESTING IN ACHIEVEMENT—


We are ambitious about this vital project, and we hope that you can share our ambition for the work of the Goliath Trust in our first year.

If you are interested in supporting the work of the Goliath Trust please contact us at—

Email: [email protected]: 028 90 209 218

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OUR 12 PARTNER SCHOOLS FOR THE 2017-2018 YEAR ARE—

Fane Street Primary School Fane StreetBelfastBT9 7BWPrincipal: Hilary Cunningham

Botanic Primary School 6 Botanic Court,BelfastBT7 1QYPrincipal: Paul Bell

St Paul’s Primary School 34-36 Mica Drive Belfast BT12 7NNPrincipal: Sean McNamee

Holy Rosary Primary School 27 Sunnyside CrescentBelfast BT7 3DBPrincipal: Paddy McAllister

Malvern Primary SchoolForster StreetBelfastBT13 1HWPrincipal: Jenny Barber

Springhill Primary School 247 Ballyhomartin Road,BelfastBT13 3NHPrincipal: Frankie Andrews

Edenbrooke Primary School230 Tennent StreetBelfastBT13 3GGPrincipal: Lisa Grimason

Glenwood Primary School4-22 Upper Riga StreetBelfastBT13 3GWPrincipal: Wesley Wright


Blackmountain Primary School Black Mountain PlaceBelfastBT13 3TTPrincipal: Jill Black

Harmony Primary School 99 Forthriver CrescentBelfastBT13 3SSPrincipal: Alison Hutchinson

Springfield Primary School425 Springfield RoadBelfastBT12 7DJPrincipal: Stephen Osborne

Forthriver Primary School100 Cairnmartin RoadBelfastBT14 7GYPrincipal: Lorna Rankin

“78,000 children are significantly underachieving at primary school level”

“Education is not the filling of a pail. But the lighting of a fire.” WB YEATS

GOLIATHTRUST.COM 028 90 209 218 [email protected]

120a Ormeau RoadBelfastBT7 2EB

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