News and publications

The Backbone Fund provides £2 million in core, long-term funding each year to organisations working across civil society — organisations whose work sustains the conditions for justice, democracy, and collective care.

Reflecting on scoring an ​‘A’ overall in the Foundation Practice Rating for the fourth year running. 

Pat Cochrane and Vicky Storey, evaluation support consultants for rounds 3–8 of the Teacher Development Fund, reflect on the differing approaches to evaluation across TDF projects and share some of the ways that colleagues have enabled genuine exploration and learning as an integral part of the process.

TDF evaluation consultants, Pat Cochrane and Vicky Storey, speak with three senior leaders from recent Teacher Development Fund programmes to explore their role within the evaluation of their projects. Together, they discuss how senior leaders can lead and sustain evaluation processes to shape programme development and enhance professional learning outcomes.

Sarah Eastaff, Director of Creative Learning at darts, and Helena Honeybone, Headteacher at Town Field Primary School, reflect on the benefits of their collaborative approach to their Teacher Development Fund evaluation, sharing their learning from the process and its ongoing impact on their organisations.

Helen Barnett, Creative Director, Trestle Theatre, offers insight into their collaborative evaluation approach for their Teacher Development Fund project, partnering with the University of Hertfordshire. With co-creation built in from the start, Helen reflects on the benefits of working so closely with their partner and shares the many ways that the project communicated their learning within and beyond the programme.

Our Head of Programme – Young People, Ruth Pryce, reflects on the Government’s new youth strategy, Youth Matters: Your National Youth Strategy.

Our Head of Programme – Arts, Shoubhik Bandopadhyay, explores some of the shared approaches we’re noticing in round two of our Arts Fund.

Our Arts Team reflect on the second round of our Arts Fund, including what trends and themes we’re noticing across both rounds of grant making.