Maritime Children's Fundation
Welcome to the Maritime Children’s Foundation!
We created the Maritime Children’s Foundation in order to ensure every Maritime child can have the support they need to ensure they thrive and realise their full potential - irrespective of their background.
The Foundation is focused on supporting a range of exciting innovations across our Maritime schools and our communities, focusing on those children who most need it. We are currently running three main programmes of support.
1. The Maritime Skills Academy
- A Robotics and Coding Club run by a team of coders, engineers and scientists. Engineering Minds provides clubs across London, focusing on encouraging under-represented groups to get interested in science, engineering, technology and maths.
- Art club where the children explored 'large art', sculpture and textiles;
- Drama sessions that developed performing, public speaking, dance and expression; and
- Sports coaching which expanded children's opportunities and experiences of a range of different sports
This was run from Greenacres School, Greenwich for 30 children from our local community.
Our ambition from here: Following the successful launch of the Maritime Skills Academy at Greenacres, we are now looking to roll this out to our Medway children with a second Skills Academy.
2. Support for families with children aged 0-3 years
It is now well understood that the first few years of a child’s life are critical. Maritime is keen to support our families before their children join Maritime Academy Trust. We are now looking to build a programme of support for families with very young children at Hook Lane and Bligh schools. We are looking to create partnerships with midwives and other support services, with parents e.g. offering parenting classes as well as offer drop in sessions to create strong new communities.
Our ambition from here: We are aiming to get a 0-3 offer up and running in every Maritime school, building on our experience at Bligh and Hook Lane schools.
3. Enhanced Community Engagement
In May 2022 we appointed a new Community Engagement Officer to work across Maritime’s schools. Our wonderful lead, Katie- Louise Lawrence has worked tirelessly across three priority schools - Bligh, Ebbsfleet and Hook Lane to build a wonderful programme tailored to the needs of each community.
Katie-Louise Lawrence, Community Engagement Officer
At Ebbsfleet the focus is on building a school community in an area that is just being created, through regular coffee mornings which include introducing wider services such as local NHS support.
At Bligh the focus is on connecting our children to the wider community and supporting our parents with the skills and services they need to ensure every child thrives.
At Hook Lane our Year 5 children have created a wonderful partnership with a local care home, with children attending the care home and care home residents visiting Hook Lane too, with both sides gaining hugely from this partnership.
Our ambition from here: We would love to expand the support we can offer to all of our schools by expanding our Community Engagement team.
