About us
The Royal Wanstead Children’s Foundation (RWCF) and Joint Educational Trust (JET) have recently merged to form Royal National Children’s Foundation.
The two charities currently support over 373 vulnerable children and young people at some 100 boarding schools and prep day schools throughout the UK. These are mostly children with one or no active parents who have suffered in their home or family environment and who are below the poverty line.
Together, these two charities have helped fund boarding school and independent prep school education for some 2,500 disadvantaged young people over the past 30 years.
Our research shows that Assisted Boarding transforms the lives and prospects of hundreds of vulnerable young people: they tend to outperform their peers across a range of social, relationship and academic measures because they, quite literally, grasp their golden opportunity with both hands. There are still many more vulnerable young people we cannot yet help, and we want to reach out to individuals and organisations who can help us expand our work at a time when there is so much need.
Brief History
Royal Wanstead Children’s Foundation was founded in 1827 by Dr Andrew Reed with an initial donation from the young Princess Victoria, who as Queen Victoria became its first Patron. Since the closure of its own schools in 1971, Royal Wanstead has been providing Assisted Boarding for vulnerable young people at independent and state boarding schools throughout the UK.
The Joint Educational Trust (JET) was founded in 1972 by a group of independent school head teachers, to support vulnerable young people age 7- 13 at boarding and day schools. JET and Royal Wanstead have co funded boarding school fees for hundreds of vulnerable children during the past 20 years. JET’s first chairman was Group Captain Douglas Bader.
The two charities were at the forefront of the Government’s Pathfinder scheme to encourage local authorities to apply Assisted Boarding for the benefit of vulnerable young people in their care. They worked with former Schools Minister Lord Andrew Adonis (himself a former Assisted boarder) to establish the Pathfinder scheme for local authorities.
