Brighter Futures

Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are four times less likely to enter further education, according to recent data from UCAS. The potential of so many young people across Liverpool City Region (LCR) is being overlooked, simply due to their economic circumstances. It’s a sobering truth and one we are determined to change.

In 2017, we partnered with educational charity IntoUniversity and Liverpool Football Club Foundation to open a learning centre in Anfield dedicated to helping the local community broaden their horizons. Over the past five years, the IntoUniversity North Liverpool centre has helped thousands of children to realise their potential, with many now studying at university and many more following in their footsteps. But there are still so many who could benefit from our support. That’s why we’ve teamed up with our founding partners once again with the goal of opening a second learning centre.

“When we started our journey with IntoUniversity and the University of Liverpool, our goal was to help young people achieve their goals through greater access to quality education,” said Matt Parish, CEO of LFC Foundation.

“Five years on, the partnership has supported over 3,000 young people in Liverpool with 61% of those who have visited the centre progressing on to further education.”

A powerful partnership

This time, our fundraising campaign, Future Goals, is also backed by the Steve Morgan Foundation and Everton in the Community. The fact that Liverpool’s two rival football teams have joined forces is testament to the significance of the campaign.

“We’re delighted to be joining forces with this fantastic group of organisations on what is an important and much-needed project in our region,” said Sue Gregory, CEO at Everton in the Community. “The campaign fits perfectly into our own lifelong learning strategy, and by working [together] we can really increase our collective impact on the education inequality gap.”

The campaign is well on the way to achieving our target of £3 million, enough to fund the existing learning centre in Anfield for five more years, while also creating a new centre to benefit another Merseyside community. We plan to open the new learning centre in the Autumn of 2023 - its location will be confirmed later this year.

Making a difference

In deciding where to establish the centre, we focused our research towards some of the most disadvantaged communities in the LCR. One such place is Kirkby, in the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley - one of five areas where students in receipt of Free School Meals exceed the national average. By the time young people in Kirkby reach their GCSEs only 37.3% of young people are achieving more than five pass grades, which is much lower than the national average of 56.6%.

A new IntoUniversity learning centre in an area like this could help young people who haven’t considered further education to raise their aspirations and reach new goals.

Education for all

The Future Goals campaign is part of our broader commitment to opening educational opportunities for all. The University has a long-standing record of improving the social mobility of students by enabling participation in higher education and, through our strategic Access & Participation Plan, we aim to build upon this reputation. “We firmly believe that anyone with the talent to pursue study in higher education should be given the opportunity and encouragement to do so,” says Gavin Brown, the University’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education. “We continue to invest more than £10m each year in financial support and outreach activities to young people who would not traditionally consider going to university.

“I’m delighted that the Steve Morgan Foundation and Everton in the Community have joined our Future Goals partnership with IntoUniversity and the LFC Foundation to help many more young people across the region to make the most of their talents and abilities.” ●

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