Family Learning

Summary of the programme

Families are our first and most important teachers, and they also teach us the most important things in life. We get knowledge from school, other adults and our peers, but that knowledge is given meaning by our family.

Family Learning involves learning activities where children and parents learn together. We will only fund projects that involve adults and children learning together and will achieve all three of the following changes:

• families take part in and enjoy education more
• families increase their skills and knowledge
• parents and carers communicate better with their children and give more support to their education.

We want to support families who face barriers to learning or who lack confidence helping their children learn. We are particularly interested in hearing from projects where learning is not based on getting a qualification and those that will help families who have not been involved in learning together before. We are looking for imaginative projects that remove the practical barriers to learning, for example, by paying for travel costs, support for disabled participants, or childcare.

You can apply for grants of more than  £10,000 and up to £500,000, though we would expect the average grant to be between £100,000 - £150,000. We will fund projects for up to five years. Your project can be either a local or a national one.

By “family” we mean at least one parent or adult carer and at least one child under the age of 16.

Who is eligible?

You can apply to Family Learning if you are:

• a registered charity
• a voluntary or community group
• a statutory body (this includes schools and children’s centres)
• a charitable or not-for-profit company
• a social enterprise
• a private sector organisation.

Statutory bodies and private sector organisations who want to apply must involve a voluntary or community sector partner in planning and running the project.

What to do next

• Questions about Family Learning? Find out more.
• Not eligible for a Family Learning? Browse our other programmes

Contact

• Call our national helpline for advice on 0845 410 20 30.
• Email us at general.enquiries@biglotteryfund.org.uk
• Call our Lottery Funding Helpline on 0845 275 00 00 or go to www.lotteryfunding.org.uk