Griffin Park Learning Zone (GPLZ) is a Study Support Centre situated within Brentford Football Club that concentrates on raising attainment for young people between the ages of 8-19yrs using the football stadium, players and staff.

It is an ICT and Learning suite where focus is on using the unique sports environment and creative projects to motivate and inspire young people to learn. We recognise that some young people often lack confidence in their own abilities to learn and achieve. Within GPLZ we are fortunate enough to be able to allow young people the freedom to work independently and creatively at their own pace. The young people benefit from the ethos, teaching and environment we offer and from working with teachers and other adults, such as football coaches, players and Brentford FC staff.

BACKGROUND

Griffin Park Learning Zone opened in 2005 as a unique community partnership project between the London Borough Hounslow (LBH), the Department for Education (DFE) and Brentford FC.

The project was funded under the 'Playing for Success' (PFS) programme, a national network of learning centres linked to sports clubs, at its peak there were over 163 of such centres. The PFS aims were to provide six weeks of out of hours learning programmes, to raise attainment in literacy, numeracy and ICT for primary and secondary school students in Hounslow annually.

The Learning Zone quickly established a reputation for providing exciting and innovative learning experiences and over the last five years has developed a range of programmes and projects that have been well attended and positively evaluated by schools and other partners. Our users have grown from that initial 300 to over 2000 young people across all ages taking part in a range of activities. In short a project set up to run four twilight sessions a week, term time only now delivers projects five days a week throughout the year.

The 'Playing for Success' programme has proved successful in increasing young people's confidence back in the classroom. However in addition, the work of the Learning Zone has undoubtedly impacted young people who are traditionally hard to reach with projects for Woodbridge Park School, young people who are defined as NEET (Not in Employment, Education and Training) with our employability skills programme for Connexions - where all but one of the attendees had positive outcomes of employment or college places. Our Literacy projects have not only inspired young people to read, 'Kick Into Reading' but also to write with 'Brentford 'til I die' a book by fans for fans being rolled out nationally by the National Literacy Trust, to come together to celebrate a love of reading 'The Hounslow Big Read' and to act as positive role models for others 'Reading Champions.' 'The Buzz' newspaper is an extremely popular summer programme where young people write and create a newspaper specifically for their peers with 20,000 newspapers being distributed to all primary schools in Hounslow; The annual 'Big Read match' sponsored by Pearsons Publishing encourages families to read together as hundreds of books are distributed at a home match.

In 2006 the Learning Zone and Brentford FC Community Sports Trust were successful in seeking additional funding from the Learning Skills Council (LSC) for further capital redevelopment of the Hive, which has been converted to a 'flexible learning space', this allowed us to increase capacity of delivery and run events with more young people i.e. Year 10 Industry Days, young people's conference and dance classes including this year - summer workshops with the Ballet Rambert. In 2009 the Learning Zone were able to broker a partnership between the Inclusion team and the club, which meant that the press room was redeveloped to accommodate the Interim Education Centre.

GPLZ continues to work strongly with the BFCCST on exciting projects including disability holiday and family learning programmes.

The Learning Zone has excellent relationships with all members of the football club at all levels. The BFC staff are very happy to offer their expertise and also to take part in activities including the popular press conferences with players and team management.

The Learning Zone is in a unique position to provide learning in the 'exciting' environment of the football club, which is very much in the heart of the community.