Campaign by Story
We are excited to be working towards the opening of Acorn Exeter, an alternative provision setting, supporting young people in the city who aren’t engaging in, or are at risk of exclusion from, mainstream education.
Did you know...?
IN THE SCHOOL YEAR 2021-22, AROUND 80 PUPILS IN DEVON WERE PERMANENTLY EXCLUDED FROM SCHOOL
IN 2022-23, MORE THAN 220 PUPILS WERE PERMANENTLY EXCLUDED FROM SCHOOL
THIS YEAR, THE FIGURES ARE ON COURSE TO BE MORE THAN BOTH OF THOSE NUMBERS PUT TOGETHER
The young people who come to us will be really struggling in school and having a hard time making progress with their learning. They might be struggling to manage their behaviour, suffering from anxiety or with their mental health, experiencing significant social difficulties or battling learning needs that are not able to be met where they are. We find that many of our students have experienced trauma in their past and many have extremely challenging home lives.
Acorn Centres are a safe places, where values of love, grace, compassion, forgiveness and hope underpin our curriculum and culture, and young people are supported to build strong foundations and regain hope for the future.
Acorn Exeter will be a partnership between Acorn Alternative Provision and Belmont Church, with support and involvement from churches across the city. Belmont are busy getting the building ready and gathering a local team of volunteers. We’re working together to build relationships with local referrers to secure our first cohort of young people. We’ve appointed 2 passionate and talented members of staff and are in the process of recruiting a 3rd. The team join us for induction at the beginning of September, with young people due to begin arriving from the 16th.
Starting Acorn a year ago with no cash in the bank was a huge step of faith – made possible by the provision of referrers who paid invoices promptly, a number of kind donations from friends and the generosity of TLG (our previous organisation) who gifted us some of the resources that had belonged to their Education Centres. Opening our first ‘new’ Centre as Acorn is another big step – and one that we don’t yet have a financial budget for, only a ‘faith budget’!
Acorn Exeter will not start to generate its own income until after it has opened, so we need your help to get it off the ground. We are looking to raise £15,000 to help with set-up costs, including buying physical resources (like furniture, books, games, IT equipment, learning resources, therapeutic equipment) and training and onboarding our staff team.