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A student receiving tutoring from her mentor

Inspire! shortlisted for the Lord Mayor’s Dragon Awards

A student receiving tutoring from her mentorWe are delighted to be considered for the prestigious Lord Mayors’ Dragon Awards, having been shortlisted in the Community Partners category for our work with Linklaters LLP. The Awards celebrate excellence in corporate community involvement programmes across London.

Our long-standing partnership with Linklaters is centred around their Realising Aspirations programme (formerly known as Learn for Work), which is managed and partly delivered by Inspire! in concert with a range of other voluntary sector partners. The programme’s overall aim is to raise the aspirations of young people in Hackney, with a particular focus on students from Linklaters’ partner school, the Clapton Girls’ Academy.

The programme uses various curriculum enrichment activities to achieve this aim, drawing on the expertise of all the charity partners involved: The Noisy Classroom, who deliver debate training; The Access Project, who facilitate subject-based tutoring and university application support; Mentoring Works, who provide mentoring support; Pop-Up, who run in-school festivals of literature and literacy; the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme, promoting life skills and self-confidence; and Teaching Leaders, who offer professional development programmes to Hackney teachers. As well as managing the project, Inspire! also delivers various work-related learning programmes in conjunction with the programme. Since its inception in 2007, the programme has worked with thousands of students, teachers and Linklaters volunteers, with 99% of participating students saying their involvement with the programme raised their aspirations.

We are very pleased that this important project, delivering a range of interventions to support young people throughout their school careers, has been shortlisted. Our Director, Jonny Boux, said: ‘Inspire! are thrilled to be nominated for the Lord Mayors’ Dragon Awards. We have a long and rich partnership with Linklaters, working together over a number of years to make a difference to young people in Hackney. We are honoured that our work has been recognised by such a highly-respected awards scheme.”

Click here to read a case study highlighting some of the successes of the programme through the experiences of a current student at Clapton Girls’ Academy.