Education for Good Report October - December 2019

Every three months, Bayswater Education produces a report on the Education for Good activities we have been doing both inside and outside the college. This quarter we share updates on our partner projects supporting teenagers in Brazil and Colombia, our progress in rolling out our refugee pilot programme in universities across the UK and fundraising activities inside the college.

Mais Caminhos

We continue to partner with NGO ‘Mais Caminhos’, who support children and teenagers living in the Pavão-Pavãozinho and Cantagalo favelas in Rio de Janeiro through providing education opportunities and pastoral care. Bayswater Foundation is funding two English classes of 12 to 16-year olds as part of our one-for-one model. This trimester, students focused on designing, developing, and filming their final projects. Their assignment was to choose between writing and narrating a story, filming a how-to tutorial, or performing and interview or skit, in English. The two classes have been monitored on their progress; results shown below. They now plan to split the group into 2 levels based on ability so that students can progress at their own pace. They aim to start the year by having the students themselves create a list of rules and guidelines which they should follow throughout the year to maximize their learning capacities.

Director Marie Dupuy thanks Bayswater Foundation again ‘for this amazing opportunity’ which has been ‘life changing’ for their students. In 2020, we want to extend this offering to more young people by funding another English class.

Final Exam Results

Vocabulary (out of 10)

Grammar (out of 17)

Reading/Writing

(out of 13) Extra Points Awarded

(Homework) Total Points (out of

40) Average (out of

100)

Class 1 Averages 7.3 13.8 9.2 1.2 31.5 79

Class 2 Averages 5.8 12.1 11.1 1.6 30.6 77

Overall Averages 6.5 12.8 10.3 1.4 31.0 78

Fundación Caminos

We extended our funding of English classes with our partners Fundación Caminos in Medellin, Colombia. This inspiring organisation provide a space for young people living in the comunas of the city to develop skills and meet positive role models. The students have been thoroughly enjoying their sessions working on active listening skills and pronunciation.

Over the past few months, Fundación Caminos have also received a donation for chairs with desks and more books so English lessons are a lot easier!

Our Business Development Manager for Latin America, Sonya Olaya, also visited the organisation in November and was taken away by their commitment to making education accessible for all. “It was amazing!” We will continue to support this class and hope to fund another to engage more English learners in 2020.

Nottingham refugee programme

In November, it was a great honour to be nominated for ‘Charity Endeavour of the Year’ at the Lead 5050 Women in Education awards in Berlin for our Nottingham refugee programme. This recognised the work of our team during August to assist people from refugee backgrounds and give them more confidence in communicating in English and a taste of university life.

Since then, we have been in talks with universities around the UK to encourage them to pilot this taster programme in their institutions (Leicester, Winchester, UEL, Brunel, Bath, Manchester, Warwick, City University and Leeds). STAR (Student Action for Refugees) have teamed up with us to create a ‘How to’ pack which will be shared with institutions at a meeting hosted in Leicester in February.

Fundraising & Activity in the college

Looking forward to the next 3 months

We plan to: Meet with Universities to deliver a ‘How To’ pack based on our 2019 refugee programme, Partner with more charities and organisations around the world to maintain our One for One promise, Continue World Café sessions for our community in the college, and Organise at least 2 fundraising events in the college.

If you are interested in getting involved with, please feel free to contact James: foundation@bayswater.ac or call him on 020 7221 7259.

Jessica went to Nottingham to see participants and volunteers from last year’s programme and catch up on their progress – many have applied for university and hope to start in September 2020!

Over the past few months, students and staff in the college have been raising money for our projects through a spooky Halloween party in Notting Hill, an international food lunch (see the infamous Venezuelan arepas!), a talent show and a charity rugby tournament.

We are very grateful to everyone who has been involved in these events which have raised £410.80 for the Foundation!

We continue to support Refuaid with scholarship places in our General English and IELTS classes. And finally, our World Café has welcomed as diverse speakers as Marine Conservationists to Food Sharing App evangelists.