The project’s aim is to improve health and wellbeing for the elderly, vulnerable adults, teenagers and young families. The project will also strive to boost access to and participation in health and community services that are available in the community.

A large aspect of the project will involve the creation of a telecare programme for elderly in the community. With feelings of loneliness and isolation being a common challenge for many elderly people, the telecare initiative will aim to provide social interaction and support.

The project will also focus on engaging with and supporting young mothers, connecting new parents with others in their community and providing mentoring and support in areas of parenting and family life.

Thanks to the National Lottery Grant, the project will be able to employ a new full time project director, a full time project worker and a part-time administrator. The project will also recruit and train a number of volunteers to deliver the project on an ongoing basis.

Russell Rook – CEO for Chapel St – said, ‘Through Chapel St’s healthcare work, we are committed to enhancing community health and well being. Being awarded this grant means that we can now undertake some really important work in engaging with the elderly, young parents and vulnerable people in Fulham. Whether it’s being able to give reassurance to an elderly person through our telecare programme, providing a new mum with support and advice through our mentoring intiative, or make people aware of the various health services that are available to them, this funding will go a long way in contributing to a happy, healthy Fulham. Thank you Big Lottery!’

The Cassidy Medical Centre and Health Hub is an NHS practice that provides full GP and extra health services in Fulham. It is delivered through a partnership of Chapel St and The Hurley Group. Chapel St work alongside the Health Hub to extend the reach of the practice more deeply in to community life.

Designed to connect mums with mums, the programme will aim to offer mentoring and support for mums-to-be and new mums.  The scheme will run for people from early pregnancy and through the first year after birth. The hope is to connect people with a trained, local volunteer mentor, who can provide support and advice and also enable mums to meet other people in their area.

For more information about the scheme email jo.stilwell@chapelst.org

Russell Rook (Chapel St CEO) and Elizabeth Haddock (Principal for Atherton Community School) outside Atherton Town Hall

Atherton Community School has now received confirmation from Wigan Council that the preferred sites for our new school have been approved.

Following a cabinet meeting by Wigan Council, the Local Authority have agreed to the lease of both Atherton Town Hall to be used as a temporary site for the first year of the school’s operation and also the Hamilton Street site as the permanent location.

Atherton Town Hall will be used as a temporary location, while building works are completed on part of the Hamilton Street site for the new school. The plan is to use some of the existing school buildings, which will be completely refurbished, as well as constructing some new buildings too.

This significant announcement about the school’s site is another important milestone in the plans and preparations for this new school. In recent months, Chapel St have recruited Elizabeth Haddock as Principal Designate for the new school and have recently recruited another three key roles in their senior staff team, including the Vice Principal, Head of Sixth Form and the Leader of Communication and Expression, who will be joining Elizabeth in September. The school continues to receive applications from local families and has just published it’s new logo.

Trevor Barton MBE is a governor for Atherton Community School and welcomed the site announcement, saying:

‘I am delighted to hear that our Local Authority Cabinet had approved the temporary use of the Town Hall in Atherton for one year only before moving to a more permanent site in Hamilton Street.

This follows on from the appointment of Elizabeth Haddock, our Principal Designate and the recent recruitment of additional experienced and high quality senior staff. The concept that we embraced twelve months ago is becoming a reality and this should assist parents and carers in making the important choice of where to send their children to school.

We continue to work to progress the funding agreement for the school with the Department for Education. The business community have also met and is very supportive of assisting the school in making it very relevant to the world of work. I am delighted that Atherton looks likely now to have its own senior school.’

Elizabeth Haddock has been visiting local families and sending offers to the very first pupils of the school. About the site, Elizabeth said:

‘As I have met with parents and children of Atherton, the desire for this new school in the community is clear. Atherton families want a new secondary school, in their own community, which is why the council’s decision is so important and exciting. As a temporary location, we are convinced that the town hall will be more than adequate for the needs of the school in the first year and as we move in to the Hamilton Site, we look forward to creating a totally new school and writing a new script for the young people of this town.’

It is the Office of the School Commissioner’s role to consider which sponsors will provide the best possible solution for a particular school(s), and Ministers make a final decision as to whether a proposed sponsor should take forward a specific academy project.

Chapel St will now be placed in the Department’s pool of potential Academy sponsors, for matching to a suitable academy project.

This is an exciting and important development for the Education arm of Chapel St, and creates more possibilities for us to open doors in community life through education.

Read more about the work of Chapel St in education.

Chapel St's Annual Review 2011

The Chapel St team are now in full swing for 2012. We’re preparing to open our first Free School in Atherton this September, bidding to open new schools in 2013 and continuing to develop the work of our Family Hub in Roehampton and our Health Hub in Fulham.

As we look forward to all that lies ahead for 2012, we wanted to take a moment to look back on all that we did during 2011. So here’s our Annual Review. In it, read about the work of our first Family Hub in Roehampton, how we’re working for happy healthy communities through our health projects and also, our preparations to open the first Chapel St schools in 2012.

We hope it gives you a feel for how Chapel St has started to open doors of change, relationship and opportunity in deprived areas.
Download your own copy of our Annual Review here.

Elizabeth will soon be taking up her role, in order to get fully immersed in the plans and preparations for the school and will be attending Chapel St’s next community consultation meeting at 7.30 pm on 1st February 2012, for local parents and carers. The meeting will be held at the Jubilee Hall Function Room, St Richard Parish Centre, Stanley Street, Atherton.

Elizabeth has considerable experience in successfully raising attainment and aspirations in education as well as having the track record of successfully opening two academies. Her teaching experience began in Mexborough, a South Yorkshire mining village where her interest in working alongside communities began. She has had almost 30 years of teaching in a range of schools both in Britain and overseas, at all levels of seniority.

Elizabeth successfully opened Salford City Academy where she led the transformation of education from satisfactory to good over her five years tenure with substantial improvements across the board in all indicators. Her recent post was as Acting Principal of St Peter’s Academy, Stoke on Trent where she rescued the project to successfully open in September 2011.

‘I am thrilled to be taking on the post of Principal Designate of Atherton Community School. I am looking forward to working with the whole community to create a school that will have a significant and lasting impact that the whole town can be proud of,’ says Elizabeth.

As well as meeting the new Principal, Chapel St’s next community consultation meeting will provide community members with another important opportunity to complete a consultation survey. Chapel St have created the survey to gather views and opinions about the school.

As with every Free School project around the country, Chapel St are required to demonstrate to the Department for Education the local demand for the school, and this survey is part of a consultation process that started on 17th December and runs to 17th February 2012. Paper versions of the survey have been circulated to the community and an online version is also available.

Visit the web site for Atherton Community School

Starting off at the Houses of Parliament for an early morning breakfast concert in Black Rod’s Garden, we were pleased to perform to a very special audience. Baroness Maeve Sherlock (Chair of Chapel St) and her amazing assistant Robert Carr braved the frosty morning and gave us lots of encouragement for the day ahead. From there, the runners set off for the first part of their marathon run and the players started a marathon of their own: non-stop carolling from dawn ’til dusk!

During the day, the Carolthon crew performed a number of concerts around London, including Westminster Tube, John Lewis on Oxford Street, St Pancras Station and Marks and Spencers on Oxford Street. The runners met up with the band at various stages along the way to join in with the playing or collecting efforts. The run route included numerous circuits of Hyde Park, interspersed with a few ‘dodge the shoppers’ routes to Oxford Street and St Pancras. With such amazing weather, we couldn’t have asked for a better day!

Our Carolthon Finale was held at Chatham Financial in Covent Garden. Hosted by Phong Dinh and Jamie MacDonald from Chatham Financial, the Carolthon crew were very pleased to be part of Chatham’s office Christmas celebrations and also to come in from the cold! Chapel St would like to say a very big thank you to everyone at Chatham Financial for their hospitality and generous donation to the Carolthon’s fundraising.

Our Special Thanks…

The Carolthon day would not have happened withouth the hard work and help of lots of people, including our amazing Carolthon crew. We’d like to say thank you to:

The logistics guru: Dave Hitchcock
The runners: Russell Rook, Johnny Laird, Jennifer Wallington and Janet Miles.
The band master: Clive ‘if-you-are-out-of-tune-you-probably-are’ Rubery.
The band: Adrian Gosling, Gav Dunn, John Bloomfield, Johnny Laird, Russell Rook, Phil Wall, Philip Haigh, Raymond Pont and the young man that spontaneously joined us at St Pancras after his audition at the Royal Academy of Music. Want to join in next year?!
The support crew: Barry Waterton, Pat Waterton and Andrew Miles
The physio/osteophath: Helen Amemble
Baroness Maeve Sherlock and Robert Carr
Roehampton University: Donna Jarvis and Chris O’Boyle for your support and mini-Carolthon on campus!
Chatham Financial: Phong Dinh, Jamie MacDonald and all the great team in Covent Garden
The staff at St Pancras Station
London Underground and in particular the staff at Westminster Tube Station
London Metropolitan Police
Westminster Borough Council
T-Shirt Design: Pete Smith from Recognition Awards

And finally – thank you to all our donors. Your donations and support to our charity are very much appreciated and has made the Carolthon what it was. If you’ve enjoyed the journey so far and would like to help support Chapel St on a more regular basis, just visit our Just Giving site for more information.

See our Carolthon photos on Chapel St’s Facebook Page

Become a regular donor on our Chapel St’s Just Giving Page

This Christmas, Chapel St are organising a charity challenge with a festive edge. On 15th December, the Chapel St team and friends will be taking to the streets for London’s first ever Christmas Carolthon to raise money for community health projects.

A day-long challenge from 8 am – 8 pm, the Carolthon will see a team of runners cover 26 miles and do concerts around the capital. They will be joined by a team of brass musicians who will play extra concerts during the day at key locations in London.

Starting off with a breakfast concert at the Houses of Parliament, the route will also include a lunch time gig at St Pancras station, stop offs at Oxford Street and Regent Street, and concluding in Covent Garden.

The Carolthon team is made up of Chapel St staff and other friends of the charity, and aims to raise as much money as possible through running sponsorship and carol busking collections on the day.

As a charity that exists to make change happen in community life, Chapel St is creating programmes in education, employment and health. Money raised through the Carolthon will help Chapel St’s health arm create community health programmes which can run alongside and extend the reach of their Medical Centre and Health Hub in Hammersmith and Fulham.

From dad’s and lads groups, mentoring for mums, debt counselling or care for drug and alcohol users, Chapel St hope to tackle the broader issues impacting people’s health and connect the care of the medical centre more deeply with the needs of the community.

‘As Londoners, we’re used to the phrase ‘Mind The Gap’ – but through the Carolthon, we want to help people mind the health gap that can exist in community life.  In London alone, there’s a gap in life expectancy between richer and poorer boroughs. Board the tube at Westminster and get off in Lambeth and someone’s life just got shorter – by seven years! Post codes and health prospects are linked and we want to do something about it,’ says Janet Miles, from Chapel St, who is running on the day.

‘We really hope that people will support our Carolthon, whether it’s by donating to our Just Giving page, or turning up on the day and dropping a few pennies in our busking buckets! Everything that people give helps so much and enables us to reach out more effectively to vulnerable young families, the isolated elderly and other marginalised people in deprived areas.’

To support the Carolthon visit our Just Giving page!

There is a Just Giving Page for the Carolthon Team at:
http://www.justgiving.com/teams/carolthon

Press/General enquiries:

Janet Miles, Communications at Chapel St: 020 8241 2017
Email: carolthon@chapelst.org
Web: www.chapelst.org/carolthon

Parents, carers and community members are being invited along to hear more about the plans and preparations for the new school that will be opening in September 2012.  The first of these meetings are scheduled for 7.30 pm on the evenings of the 3rd and 17th November at Jubilee Hall Function Room, St Richard Parish Centre, Stanley Street, Atherton.

The purpose of the Open Evenings is to provide an opportunity for local people to hear more about the vision and ethos of the school, get the latest information on the curriculum, learn about the registration and admissions process, meet some of the Chapel St team and provide input on shaping the design of the school’s motto and emblem.  

‘At Chapel St, listening to and involving the local community in our work is a real priority and we’re really excited about this series of open evenings. They will play a really important part in the creation of this new school.  Between now and the school’s opening, there are a lot of preparations to be made. We want to do all that we can to update people on progress, answer questions and hear what’s important to local families in the shaping of this new school. We hope that people will take the opportunity to come along, meet us and hear more,’ says Russell Rook, CEO of Chapel St.

The open evenings are free events and all are welcome. Community members can arrive on the evening, but if you wish to let us know you are coming, simply email us and we’ll add you to the list!

For more details about the school and to sign up for news updates and application details, visit: http://www.chapelst.org/acs or email: schoolinfo@chapelst.org

Download a flyer about the open evenings:

Over the last year, hundreds of local residents and community leaders have worked and wished for, campaigned and called for a new secondary school in the community. Atherton Community School’s top priority will be to equip the children of the town to achieve long-lasting success in school and society and in the workplace and the world.

Atherton Community School will help to transform the lives of children, celebrating every child’s strengths and talents, providing personalised and creative routes to learning and actively engaging parents and carers in their child’s education. Atherton Community School will grow a student population of 450 secondary students, combined with 200 Sixth Form students.

Atherton Community School will partner with Fred Longworth High School to ensure that local children and families receive outstanding teaching and learning across all areas and ages.

Jenny Naylor, a local parent, speaks on behalf of the 97% of Atherton parents who wish to send their children to a local school when she says, “As a parent that lives in Atherton and has four children, one of whom will be starting secondary school in 2012, I am more than pleased that Atherton Community School has the go ahead.”

Paul Ackers and Sam Reece commented along similar lines, “At last, brilliant news for the children of Atherton, their own High School, which they all truly deserve! We look forward to sending our daughter to the new Atherton Community School.”

Dawn Hurst, another parent and local teacher, expresses the hope of hundreds of families when she writes, “I am certain that this new venture will be an inclusive and nurturing environment which will be capable of transforming the lives of the young people who attend.”

Chapel St Chief Executive, Dr Russell Rook, commented, “It is a huge honour for the Chapel St team to work so closely with community leaders and members in Atherton. Having worked together for over one year on these proposals, the important work of creating the school that the community needs and deserves has now truly begun.”

Atherton Community School will open as part of the Department for Education’s Free School programme. The school location will be announced shortly.

Over the next months the founding governors and Chapel St team will be holding a series of Open Evenings where parents, carers and community members can discover more about the school. Community members can sign-up for regular information and email updates using the form below. Full information about the school is available on our web site at: http://www.chapelst.org/acs

Get more information about the school

Read more about Atherton Community School
Follow the Facebook page about the School

Press/General enquiries

Call Chapel St: 020 8241 2017
Email Chapel St: schoolinfo@chapelst.org

About Chapel St

Chapel St is a change agency and a registered charity. We exist to open doors of change, opportunity and relationship in community life. Chapel St delivers public services in the areas of education, employment and health. Chapel St is working with the founding board of governors to sponsor and support Atherton Community School.

Sign up for Email Updates on Atherton Community School

A new school web site will soon be available. For regular updates and announcements about the school, please fill in this form:

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