Support the work of our Academic Mentoring Department

Any gift will be matched £ for £ up to a total of £4,000

Our sector leading Academic Mentoring Department (AMD) is integral to the academic and pastoral structures of the Upper School as well as Latymer Prep. The advice and support provided by Ceri Ellis and her team is greatly valued by our students and their parents, and they work closely with our academic staff to ensure that each of our students is able to fulfil their true potential.

Although the AMD team are able to assess our students for dyslexia and dyspraxia, more complicated diagnostic assessments of the Autistic Spectrum Condition or ADHD need to be done by external experts and typically cost c£1,200. Then there can be the cost of the follow up appointments to get the medication levels right, if medication is deemed to be the best way forward. These costs cannot be afforded by the parents of our 100% bursary holders who come from extremely low income backgrounds. Their only alternative is to register on to the 2 year waiting list for such assessments via the overstretched NHS which means an unacceptable delay in diagnosis and treatment. When such delays to diagnosis do occur, our experience has been a significant reduction in the student’s self-esteem and academic attainment. However, when a prompt diagnosis of the Autistic Spectrum Condition or ADHD is made, the levels of intervention, student support and teacher understanding make an invaluable difference to the pupil’s educational experience at Latymer and beyond to university and adulthood.

A Latymer family, whose own child greatly benefitted from a prompt diagnosis and intervention by Ceri and her colleagues, have very kindly made an initial gift to establish a fund to cover the costs of diagnosis and initial treatment for any of our bursary holders who need external assessments, but whose parents could never dream of being able to fund it privately themselves. They have also offered to match any new donations to the fund up to a total of £4,000. Being able to diagnose any barriers to learning can transform a young person's educational experience and it would be wonderful to establish a fund which would allow any of our students to get an educational psychologist report, even if their parents cannot afford to cover the cost themselves.

Donate below to help remove all barriers to learning