2019 Aberdeenshire Grant Awards

• Peterhead Canoe Club: £1,900 was given to provide coaching education for their volunteer members to further promote the work of the club, and also to buy more equipment suitable for children who are taking part in the club activities.

• MODO: £1,500 to buy a set of portable basketball nets and basket balls to help increase the number of young people using our Encounter youth café in Peterhead. Encounter provides a free, safe and accessible place for young people which is open 3 days a week, attracting around 70 young people a night (600 participants annually). This creates a network that facilitates positive pathways and produces passionate and trained volunteers enabling Encounter to open for other community activities. Police Scotland indicates that, since Encounter started, recorded crimes in the area had reduced by a third.

• Grampian Transport Museum, Young Engineers Club: £1,000 to design, build and race electric cars in a nation GreenPower Formula 24.

• Aberdeenshire Sailing Trust SC043046: £2,000 to help buy 4 new topper dinghies to replace their current ones which are over 25 years old. These will be kept at Peterhead and sail at the Lido, allowing local schools to give their students the chance to try sailing, and other local children too.

• Tarland Development Group: £1,900 to buy teaching hives and beesuits allowing them to teach practical beekeeping skills to people of all ages and abilities in the Howe of Cromar. This will be done at their new apiary, enabling them to take on more beginners and host visiting groups from across the community including schools, brownies, scouts and WRI. Read their lovely report here. 

• 1st Methlick Scout Group - SC012989: £1,000 to buy archery kit for their scout group, including bows, arrows, targets and safety equipment, giving an outdoor activity to boys and girls who join scouting in Methlick, and surrounding area. As scouts they learn teamwork but this activity will enhance what they are taught, and get them out of doors and having fun, whilst learning a new skill.

Maths Grants 2019

The short version

The great news is that due to the excellent quality of this year’s applications, we increased the number of grants from 3 to 9, giving away over £7500 to be spent on some stimulating enthusiasm in Maths across the country. We look forward to hearing the results of these exciting projects.

We are really grateful to the Association of Maths Teachers for their expert advice with these grants, as well as specialist input from several extremely kind people who helped us review the huge volume of grants and helped us make the difficult choices of which projects to fund. 

• Windmill Integrated Primary are going to help parents get over their fear of maths by hosting maths games evenings and creating “Maths Packs” for parents to enjoy playing maths games with their children. Read report here.
• St Mark’s CofE Primary School have identified that their children need support transitioning from reception to Year 1 and are going to invest in physical resources, some of which can be used over the summer holidays to reduce the “fall back” that some children experience.
• St Mary’s CofE Primary School have also used research to identify a gap, this time between girls and boys. They are looking to increase engagement and reduce the gap through a Maths-Story-book club group.
• Thomasson Memorial School helps those with visual impairments and are going to be spending their grant on technology to help their students understand 3D shapes and spatial awareness.
• Two grants, to Oughtrington Primary and The Redstart Partnership are going to enable a series of Maths competitions, between various year groups. We like the idea of making maths competitions as high profile as sporting or music events.
• Yox Valley Partnership of Schools are creating outdoor Maths stations where the older children in the schools will be “trained” to lead informal play sessions with Mathematical equipment during lunch and breaktime, inspiring the younger children whilst reinforcing their own understanding. Read report here.
• The grant to Shoreham Academy will support their Codebreaking experience during activity week, allowing them to take 48 students to visit Bletchley Park complete follow-up competitions based on their learning.
• Educational Diversity, the largest pupil referral unit in the country, works with students with a very wide range of barriers to learning, physical, mental, social, behavioural. Their grant will support the development of Maths Buddies, KS4 students working with KS2, to the benefit of both age groups.

The longer version... (well worth a read!)