Friends of TCSED

Hi TE44 - The Charters School that you referred before and which is on the list you mentioned is a completely and utterly separate school and academy that has nothing to do with either The Charter School East Dulwich or The Charter School North Dulwich. They are based in Berkshire according to the contact us section on their website. http://www.chartersschool.org.uk/Contact-Us It has an incredibly similar name but has nothing to do with The Charter School Educational Trust which both the Charter School ND and the Charter School ED is part of. If you would like an example of a very large academy trust operating in Southwark The Ark Acedemy Chain is one with 40 schools and their are several Ark Schools in Southwark (Ark Globe, Ark Evelyn Grace, Ark Walworth). Additionally, The Step Academy Trust has one primary school in Southwark which is part of it's 13 school academy system. Back to musical instruments, thanks everyone for their support and we also encourage other PTA's or parent groups to talk to music teachers in their child's school to see if donations would also be welcome .... for us, it is lovely to know that there is a stock of musicial instruments that can be loaned out to students who can't afford to buy or lease an instrument. It's one of those costs that is a barrier to someone learning an instrument as a child. If any other PTA or parent group would like to talk to us about how we set up the scheme, please drop us an email at [email protected]

Yes, this was a scheme set up by the Friends of the Charter School East Dulwich (not The Charter Schools Educational Trust) in the first year of the life of the school - two years ago. While the school is fortunate to have a good collection of intruments for use within the school for music classes and ensembles, the music teacher identified a need for a musicial instrument loan scheme so that children who wanted to have one-to-one music lessons (already subisdised by the school) but who couldn't afford to buy or rent a musicial instrument, could borrow one from the school free of charge. We asked parents and friends if they had good quality musicial instruments and we have had a number of wonderful donations. James saw a tweet we put out about our donations scheme and offered a French Horn which is great! However, we are aware there are many schools in the area who also use donations of instruments in this time of austerity and school budgets and so, we didn't want to make it a big public campaign here on the forum but we simply wanted to make people in our own school community aware of the scheme. The Friends of TCSED also initated a sponsor a book scheme where parents can sponsor a book for the school library - the list is held for us at Rye Books. I know that Alistair at Rye Books is keen to reach out to other schools who many want to launch this in their school. We'd be happy to share how we developed this scheme with any other PTA or Friends groups out there. The musicial instrument loan scheme has already had an impact. Here is a quote that we are including in the annual report of the Friends Committee. ?Whilst being at the TCSED, I was lent an instrument for nearly two years and had weekly lessons. This is an experience I never thought I would get as instruments can be very expensive so buying one wasn't an option for me. I believe that I have made great progress whilst learning to actually play an instrument and have even had a go at completing grade two, however I have also developed my music understanding and interest.? Student at TCSED who benefited from the Musical Instrument Loan Scheme. Also TE44 - I don't think that The Charter Educational Trust is mentioned on that list that you gave a link to. They mention another Trust called Charters School (showing only 1 school in it's trust whereas there are two in the East Dulwich Charter Ed Trust) - which is this one I believe: http://www.chartersschool.org.uk/ but I didn't see The Charter Schools Educational Trust mentioned at all on the list?