Transitions Bid

We are sorry to report that the “Transitions” bid for approximately £200,000 from the Big Lottery’s “Family Learning” Programme was not successful. It fell into the category of ‘large’ applications, for which more stringent criteria apply, and we have been advised that it was unsuccessful for two reasons. First, it was less ‘competitive’ – in terms of outcomes delivered per £ spent – than other large applications. Second, other large projects were considered to be more robust than ours.

No explanation is offered, and we cannot ask for feedback. We suspect, however, that the grants' panel was unconvinced by our plans for rolling out the project regionally, and even nationally, (which is a requirement for large awards).

The implication is that we should confine future applications to less than £150,000, (and probably closer to £100,000), if we want to succeed. Then they would not need to have regional or national significance.

This would, of course, mean scaling back the "Transitions" project and losing at least one part of the original proposal – which was about preparing children for nursery, helping them to learn to read, and helping them to prepare for secondary school. Which of these can we do without? Or can one of them be funded another way?