The Truronian 2023/2024

Truro School Foundation

THE WORK OF THE FOUNDATION

An Education that Makes a Difference

The Truro School Foundation has never been more necessary, more important, or more in need of your help.

When it was created in 2016, Truro School Foundations mission was to continue the School’s longstanding and Methodist ambition to increase access to an empowering education for talented children from any background irrespective of means. This has always been achieved via individual philanthropy, government-assisted places schemes (across the 1980s and 90s) and now via partnership between the School and the Foundation. As I write, Truro School supports over 50 Senior School pupils with means-tested fee assistance at a cost of over £1M per year.

The Foundation is a central part of this. It is directly responsible for several 100% bursary awards, making access to the School possible for some of the most talented but least financially secure children in our county. We are very proud of the work we do to make this possible, with the often very quiet but very generous support of some of you.

Our ambition has always been to strengthen this tradition of enabling access and to increase the numbers of children benefitting. At this time, there are direct challenges to this ambition. Following the impact of Covid and then of widespread economic difficulty that has affected all families, the new government has confirmed its plans to impose VAT on school fees and remove Business Rates Relief from independent schools like ours.

Whilst the wider agenda to support a troubled national education sector is laudable, this policy approach directly threatens our School’s ability to keep access wide and support those from less advantaged backgrounds to be here. In simple terms, the proposed new laws will mean every bursary (current or future) will need to support an approximately 20% larger fee to have the same impact, and the families least able to contribute will be most at risk. It will be the Foundation and the School who must find this extra support, therefore, or we will be forced to contemplate reversing our direction of travel towards increased bursary provision.

How can you help?

Your Stories of Empowerment

If you were the beneficiary of a means-tested bursary or support during your time at the School, we would love to know more about how it benefitted you. We know many lives have been changed in this way and we are looking to understand more about how, and why. We are also looking to celebrate and tell some of these powerful stories of this impact too.

Please do get in touch with us if you have a personal story or reflection that you would like us to know, or one that you would be happy for us to share. Connecting or re-connecting with us in this way will, we hope, allow us to advocate all the more powerfully for the future of bursary provision. This is not a financial request, but one designed to build and support community and wider awareness of the mission and impact of bursary provision at our School.

If you are a previous bursary award-holder and happy to share your story then please contact the Foundation Team on foundation@truroschool.com or call 01872 246094.

The Gift of Education

Strengthening and enhancing Truro School’s bursary offering is Truro School Foundation’s overriding mission.

This mission brings together members of the whole School community and wider Truronian family who share the belief that our School should commit itself to educating talented and enthusiastic young people, regardless of means.

This has happened across generations at the School and must continue to happen in the future. There are new pupils joining our School this September as a direct result of Foundation Awards, and we welcome them with a real sense of excitement about their futures. We thank all of our current and previous donors who have supported these opportunities –your donations are changing lives right now.

There is, of course, a strong desire to do more good for more children however and wherever we can. The Foundation, with the School, is looking ahead to consider how we can build a strategy to secure as much need-blind access to the School as possible in the years ahead. At the forefront of this drive will be the Foundation’s Trustees, its new Chair, Nigel Ashcroft MBE, the Head, and the School’s Development and Alumni Relations team.

Likewise, if you would like to discuss any form of donation or wider philanthropy to support the Foundation’s work, please do get in touch. Our Ways of Giving page offers more information about the different ways in which to help financially.

Whatever your reason for contacting us, we will welcome your email or call.

Esse Quam Videri.