Since its foundation in 1440, Eton College has provided education for pupils from many different backgrounds. From this humble beginning, Eton’s charitable purpose has grown and over the past decades the School has revived and renewed this mission.
In 2020, faced with the pandemic and various social issues it exposed across the country, Eton’s Leadership Team decided that it needed to respond by taking a decisive step forward as an institution. Eton has therefore formed a partnership with the outstanding multi-academy trust Star Academies to establish a series of sixth form schools on the model of the highly successful London Academy of Excellence (LAE).
As with LAE, these schools – which will be in Dudley in the West Midlands, Oldham in Greater Manchester, and Middlesbrough in Teesside – will be selective state-funded sixth form colleges opened as part of the government’s transformative free school programme.
These new schools will focus on taking talented and ambitious young people, often from the most disadvantaged communities, and helping them achieve places at the very best universities. To achieve this, an extraordinary educational model is now being designed that will offer an intensive academic A level curriculum enhanced by extra study, enrichment lessons and volunteering.
Each school will receive the standard amount of government funding for sixth forms, and in addition Eton will provide an annual subvention in the region of £1 million per school every year in order to enable the additional investment we have calculated is required to deliver the ambitious outcomes we have set out.
Philanthropy will be key to delivering this programme and the Development Office would be delighted to discuss the ways in which you can support this initiative.
