Our Origins
SpringBoard was inspired by The Arnold Foundation for Rugby School. Established in 2003, The Arnold Foundation’s ambition is to transform the lives of children from some of the country’s most deprived communities by offering full bursaries to attend Rugby School. Almost 10% of the pupils at Rugby today benefit from full bursaries, with nearly half of those pupils boarding.
The Arnold Foundation’s innovation and success come from:
-
strong relationships with partners working with disadvantaged children and recommending pupils
-
a system of coherent and cohesive pastoral care, involving staff, partners and parents
-
the active commitment of the whole Rugby School community of governors, staff, pupils and parents
-
fundraising by Rugby School exclusively for bursaries, with nearly £14,500,000 raised in 10 years.
Other state and independent boarding schools have also been committed to similar bursary schemes for some time, with many other schools looking to develop them.
In 2012, an extensive evaluation of the scaleability of The Arnold Foundation’s model to a national level was generously conducted at no cost by McKinsey & Company. There was scope and demand for boarding schools to lead the national roll out of the work of The Arnold Foundation: SpringBoard was born.