CPL Group grant funded projects 2021

CPL Group are delighted  to be funding projects that support students across the country.  

The education sector charity is funded through the commercial activities of  Crescent Purchasing Consortium (CPC), Tenet Education Services  and  Tenet Procurement Services. CPL Group has a vision statement ‘to be the procurement services partner of choice for the education sector and through our work, help the sector to enhance teaching and learning’.

CPL Group have provided a total of £559,000 since September 2019, in grant funding to educational institutions to fully or part-fund 113 projects. £300,000 has been awarded in our latest funding round to fully or part-fund a total of 80 projects for educational institutions.  

The successful applications in this latest round of funding are varied; from access to IT hardware for disadvantaged students, to the latest in virtual reality technology.  Other examples include equipment for Duke of Edinburgh Award activities, programmes focusing on student wellbeing and the development of a sensory garden.  

Here are a few of the interesting projects in which we are proud to be helping support with grant funding:  

Art therapy project for students who struggle with anxiety and other mental health issues  

During and post lockdown, Waldegrave School saw a significant decline in the mental health of their students resulting in increase in anxiety, low self-esteem etc. Therefore, the school decided to apply for CPL Group funding, of which they will be receiving £9,000 towards the establishment of an art therapy project for students who are struggling to work in the classroom and engage in their lessons.  

The project will be delivered in association with a local company called Anstee Bridge, who are part of ‘Achieving for Children Education Services.’

With the help of CPL Group funding, Waldegrave School will be able to fund an outreach programme with Anstee Bridge to come in and deliver this project for years 8 and 9 who are struggling to engage with their learning. The Project will involve students creating a piece of artwork which they can keep. Whilst the students are participating, they are also benefitting from the talk therapies involved with the session from the specialists who will be engaging in conversations with the students. The result is for the students to begin to feel more relaxed, through creative arts and being creative gives them something to focus on. They will also benefit from the opportunity to talk to other students in the same session who are in the same position as them and therefore not feel as alone in how they’re feeling.  

Emma Salsbury, Special Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) at Waldegrave School said;  

“We are so thrilled and grateful to receive this funding as it will make a huge difference in getting students who are struggling re-engaged again with classroom learning. The plan now is to run this programme for six weeks with one lot of students, and then another six weeks and so on, meaning we therefore get to work with as many young people as possible who are struggling with their mental health and address this issue before it gets worse. During and post lockdown, we have seen a significant declines in the mental health of our students, resulting in an increase in anxiety, low self esteem etc and this funding is just going to help us deliver a project to help those students who have struggled through those lockdowns, and get them re-engaged with learning and boost their mental wellbeing, so thankyou to CPL Group once again.”

Anatomage Table for students on medical and healthcare courses  

The Black Country & Marches Institute of Technology (IoT) is a major new development which has just opened to students and is a brand new campus for Dudley College. This brand new campus features a range of new equipment such as mock ups of hospital wards, dentist waiting rooms, operating theatres, robotics and lots of other different pieces of equipment that allow young people and employees to access hands on practical skills. As part of this learning offering, Dudley College decided to apply for £10,000 in grant funding from the CPL Group to enable them to purchase an Anatomage Table. The Anatomage Table is an advanced anatomy visualisation tool that will allow students at Dudley College to virtually explore the various aspects of the human body at a higher level of learning that is unavailable in their area outside of formal medical schools. Using this tool will help to create a very engaging learning environment for those students who are on medical, technical and healthcare programmes, particularly when studying anatomy at a higher level, and therefore visually engage these students and give them the real-world experience and the opportunity to get hands on in their learning, which they may not otherwise have had (due to not going onto University). 

Matthew Cadden-Hyde, External Project Lead at Dudley College said;  

“We are really glad to be able to purchase this fantastic piece of equipment, thanks to the funding from the CPL Group, which will really help support learner outcomes and give our students that real-world experience in the classroom. It means a lot to us especially as the Black Country is a somewhat deprived area, and we have low level participation here in higher level courses, therefore it isn’t that common for young people from this area to go onto university, in comparison with the rest of the country. The Black Country & Marches Institute of Technology was set up to help with this, but also to make technology like the Anatomage table available to young people to support them in their medical learning journey, who wouldn’t have otherwise thought they could enter a medical career. We are very grateful to CPL Group for this funding as it is really going to help us build on our aims with this project, which is to offer a hi-tech hands on learning experience to students who would not normally be able to access this type of high level learning opportunity outside of university and medical schools.”

Chromebook loan scheme for disadvantaged students  

Applecroft School were successful in their funding application and will be receiving £6,119 towards the development of a chromebook loan scheme for disadvantaged students. The school found that during lockdown and the transition to home learning, there was a percentage of families either on low income, or with multiple siblings, who didn’t have the access they required to suitable devices to keep engaged with their learning. The school recognised that there was a need for these children (where there was a lower attainment to school anyway and lower engagement capacity with learning) to gain access to their own individual devices through the use of a chromebook loan scheme. Having such a scheme for children from these families meant that they could have access to the same learning opportunities as their peers, to really give the pupils a chance to get their work done and carry on with their learning. The Department for Education had provided the school with some devices, and those students who had access to these devices managed to carry on with their learning and remained very engaged with their studies. Now the children are back to school, the school are replicating a lot of the good practice that they achieved through home learning, into the classroom. Therefore, Applecroft School will be either providing a device for a child whilst they are in school or allowing them to take home and bring in their loaned devices so that they can take part in areas of the curriculum which the school have deemed that using such a device really engages students. 

Odette Coe, Finance and Business Manager at Applecroft School said;  

"Applecroft school are over the moon to receive grant funding from the CPL Group - we can now really make an improvement to the home learning experience of our most disadvantaged children.  From the school's perspective, the project will equip our disadvantaged children with electronic devices to enable them to have full and equal access to home learning material."

The 113 projects CPL Group has funded to-date, has been made available because of your support towards our services. The 3 examples above are a snippet of the opportunities being funded which really do make a positive difference. Thank you for helping us to enhance teaching and learning across the whole country.   

Remember to keep an eye on  the  CPL Group  website  and social media pages over the next few months as we keep you updated with more details and the progress of these and other projects as they take shape.