Published originally in Prep School Magazine
Eton College has always been heavily involved with partnerships and the local community.
In 1880, a group of teachers and boys established a Christian Aid Mission for the working class community of Hackney Wick. Here, 6000 people lived in slum conditions in an area the size of the Eton Playing Fields. Funded by the vast network of Old Etonians, the Eton Mission soon established clubs for men and boys, a Neo-gothic Mission Church and a Sunday school. Whilst ties between the Hackney Wick Mission and Eton College have changed over the years, Eton’s connection to the area still lives on through partnerships with St Mary of Eton in Hackney Wick, where the Chapel Choir performed a concert in December 2019 and an upcoming concert is planned for December 2024.
In 1909 Gerald Wellesley (OE), with help from fellow OEs Alfred Ralph Wagg, Sir Edward Cadogan and Arthur George Child-Villiers, founded a club in Hackney Wick for boys. Numerous sport and sub-clubs emerged, the most notable being the Junior Bachelors’ Club, which aimed to strengthen ‘club loyalty’. From 1967, the funding for the club turned to educating young people. Today it is known as the Villiers Park Educational Trust.
In 1968, Eton pupils founded Eton Action, a charity which aimed to raise funds for other charities selected by each generation of Etonians. Eton Action continues to be a flexible charity that would never be permanently tied down to any single project and it is up to Eton boys to decide what projects to support. The first campaign was on behalf of Shelter and raised nearly £5,000, worth around £51,000 today. Today there is an annual general meeting where charities for the year are nominated by boys who give a presentation, before an open vote by boys and staff takes place to choose the five main charities for the year, though fundraising also takes place for numerous other charities as well. Last year Eton Action raised £109,622 collectively. The main event is the Eton Action Community Fair which has been running since 1973. As well as having over 100 external stalls, each boarding house at Eton has its own stall which is run and manned by the boys. All members of the boarding house are involved in some capacity, and it really is a community day. This academic year the fair raised over £32,000 and the fundraising continues.
Participating in Community Engagement at Eton is a key part of a boy’s experience in Year 12, but many boys voluntarily get involved at all ages. In Year 12 boys have many different options to get involved with: tours of the college, assisting or mentoring in local schools, helping out in local care homes, working in the local library and many more. We have a long-standing relationship with many local institutions with some engagements going back decades. For example, boys have been visiting weekly the Slough Mencap Friendly club for over 50 years.
We work with numerous state schools on activities of mutual benefit as part of the ‘Eton Connect’ programme, with a particular focus on our enriching partnerships with Holyport College, the London Academy of Excellence, the Thames Valley Learning Partnership and Star Academies; we have offered free self-study EtonX courses as a response to the Coronavirus pandemic, which have been taken up by over 1,000 state-maintained schools in the UK; 105 boys in 2022 attending Eton on free places and we offered over £9,700,000 in 2023 in scholarships and bursaries; and we encourage our people – boys and staff – throughout their time at Eton, to engage very actively with service to their local communities.
The Eton Connect partnership programme aims to engage with local state schools through various visits, events and summer schools at Eton College. This initiative encompasses a wide range of activities for pupils from primary to sixth form, as well as their teachers. Over the past year, nearly 10,000 pupils and teachers visited the College through Eton Connect.
The Eton College Collections’ museums, gallery, reading room, and historic spaces welcomes thousands of visitors. The Primary Schools Programme hosted 159 sessions for just under 4,500 primary pupils from state schools. All sessions are free, linked to the National Curriculum, activity-based, and located in one of the three museums at the College.
Last academic year, Local Partnerships connected with over 100 schools and nearly 2,000 state-sector pupils, through both annual events and bespoke visits tailored to the needs of enquiring schools. A highlight of the Local Partnerships calendar is the Mock Oxbridge interviews, which have supported 730 state-sector pupils since 2017. In November, following a webinar series, 107 Year 13 pupils from eight core partner schools received one-on-one subject-specific mock interviews with either an Eton teacher or alumni. The focus is not solely on students though and our Centre for Innovation and Research, led 17 skills and professional development opportunities attended by 1,784 pupils and education professionals during 2023 and produces a journal for Innovation and Research in Education several times a year with collaborators from several institutions. The most recent being on Unlocking the Transformative Potential of Partnerships.
During the College’s summer holiday, Eton Connect hosted three summer schools for 715 state-sector pupils from 124 schools. The Eton Summer University Preparation Courses featured 25 free, non-residential, subject-specific courses for 509 Year 12 students from 85 state schools, all taught by Eton teachers. The Skills for Success Summer School, a free five-day residential programme, catered to 176 Year 10 pupils, in three cohorts, from 44 state schools. The course focused on skills-based learning, covering public speaking, verbal communication, resilience, and creative problem-solving.
Our closest partnership is with Holyport College, a state boarding school founded 10 years ago and supported by Eton as the sole academic sponsor. Our links with Holyport are strengthening all the time and at all levels. 80% of Holyport students have been involved with Eton in some way.
This relationship is much deeper than just a use of facilities and is a genuine two-way partnership in that each week students from both schools visit the other school for societies or activities. There are several joint annual events such as the Year 9 symposium which involves all the students from Year 9 at both schools working together to learn about sustainable energy goals. Just over a year ago, Holyport opened their own Centre for Innovation and Research that works both separately and collaboratively with the one based at Eton to further develop the best ways of helping young people and teachers to learn and develop their skills.
Eton as a force for good in education, with Etonians enacting our charitable mission and becoming agents for change in the 21st century world, and we are always looking at ways to build meaningful collaborative relationships with other schools, groups and institutions.
