Two of the biggest charities in the Royal Borough have teamed up to make a £20,000 contribution to helping children getting their education online at home.

The Prince Philip Trust Fund - set up in 1977 to help people in need in the Royal Borough - and the Royal Albert Institute Fund which promotes art, science and literature in Windsor and Eton have come together for the first time to help out families and schools struggling to maintain the learning process during lockdown.

Both charities have contributed £10,000 each to fund the supply of tablets and laptops for children in families who do not have appropriate IT equipment at home to enable online learning to happen.

The £20,000 fund will be distributed to a range of schools across the Royal Borough. Each school or school cluster will own the equipment which will be loaned out to pupils in need. Each school will be responsible for the procurement, allocation and use of the equipment.

Dame Marcia Twelftree, trustee on The Prince Philip Trust Fund and ex-headteacher of Charters School in Sunningdale, said: “Schools across the Royal Borough are doing a great job, rising to the challenge of helping their pupils to continue their education online during this difficult time. However, there are a small number of pupils who simply cannot access that education because of the lack of IT equipment at home.

“We hope that this grant will help prevent some children from being left behind in their learning, and provide a resource for schools that they can continue to use in the future.”

The Prince Philip Trust Fund has allocated £10,000 to this initiative from its ‘Covid-19 Relief Fund’ which has been made available recently through the drawing on its capital reserves to support local charities, projects or community groups working to support local residents to deal with the fall out from the Covid-19 crisis.

Applications for funds remain open and can be made through the website https://theprincephiliptrustfund.org/ and should include specific details about what the funding is for and should be marked 'Covid-19 Emergency' and submitted as soon as possible within the next five weeks.