About Nesta

Nesta is an innovation foundation. For us, innovation means turning bold ideas into reality and changing lives for the better. We use our expertise, skills and funding in areas where there are big challenges facing society.

Mr. Lewis: A Rocket Fund case study

Mr. Lewis is the Head of English at Newstead Wood School. In March 2018, he aimed to raise £700 to buy seven classroom visualisers for his English Department. 40 minutes after going live they hit their target. So they added a stretch target. And another. And another! By the end of their campaign (four weeks later) they had managed to raise a grand total of £7,921.

This film is about their story.

They bought loads of exciting technology

Mr Lewis used the extra money to purchase new PCs for their English classrooms, remote clickers, new projectors (to connect to the visualisers) and Quizlet app teacher subscriptions for the whole department.

The Quizlet apps enable them to “set independent quizzes for [their] students to develop their vocabulary, literacy skills and knowledge of quotations”, while the visualisers and projectors enable the teachers to share students' work and feedback with the whole class.

Newstead Wood visualiser in action

One of the visualisers in action

The other benefits of engaging with your community

As well as improving English lessons for the 1,100 students at Newstead Wood School, Mr Lewis reported other significant benefits of the Rocket Fund process. Attracting donations from 197 people, Mr Lewis said that the sense of community spirit the school felt was really exciting. He also enjoyed how it connected parents to what they were doing in the classroom, enabling them to see exactly what he wanted to do and support it if they liked.

"The whole school felt empowered by the support they received and inspired that they can make change happen."

Mr. Lewis
thank you card writing

"Here's our wonderful Year 12 English subject leaders writing thank you cards for our sponsors!" - update from Mr. Lewis via Rocket Fund

Overall, Mr Lewis said the whole fundraising month on Rocket Fund was a period of celebration about how generous their community was and how exciting it was for the school.

See the excitement shown in Mr Lewis project updates here and the positive messages of support from donors here.

Would you like to create a project?

To create your own school fundraiser and transform your classroom, just go to www.rocket.fund and click "get started".

Part of
Rocket Fund

Author

Ben Gill

Ben Gill

Ben Gill

Senior Programme Manager

Ben was a Senior Programme Manager in the Innovation Lab's Education Team.

View profile