AN Ellesmere Port primary school has been awarded a £500 community grant.

The Acorns Primary School has 316 pupils from the ages of two to 11 and is planning on using the grant to take some of them to Ness Gardens, in order to help them better understand how to appreciate and protect the environment.

The £500 grant has come from Equilibrium Financial Planning, as the financial planning company embarks on the next round of its Community Support Scheme donations.

Hannah Broom, executive headteacher at The Acorns Primary School, said: “Due to the high levels of deprivation in this area, our children rarely have the opportunity to visit such important places as Ness Gardens.

"At The Acorns, 59 per cent of our pupils live in the bottom five per cent most deprived area of the country, and 79 per cent live in the bottom 10 per cent most deprived area in the country.

“Many of our families struggle to pay voluntary contributions towards visits and therefore, without the support of charities and support schemes, such as yours, these visits would not go ahead.

"As everyone is aware, schools' budgets are squeezed beyond what is reasonable currently, but that does not stop us aiming to give our Acorns pupils a broad, balanced, enhanced and relevant curriculum, that will inspire them to be the best they can be and become life-long learners.

“We are so very grateful to Equilibrium and look forward to sharing our photos of the trip with them when school is back open and the visits can go ahead.”

The move comes as Equilibrium recently donated over £10,500 to local charities, foodbanks and voluntary organisations, to ensure they were supported through the Covid-19 crisis.

The company’s founder, Colin Lawson, spoke about the wealth management firm’s unique approach at the time, saying: “In the wake of Covid-19, the plight of charities has really come to our attention.

"Food banks are struggling with having less volunteers and no produce as people panic buy.

"The general public is also making fewer donations than normal, as people are having to face pay cuts or redundancies and have less cash to spare.

“Everything that we do at Equilibrium is centred around making people’s lives better, and so as the world has been thrown into turmoil, we feel there’s no better time to throw ourselves wholeheartedly into that.”

Equilibrium’s Community Support Scheme was set up in 2015 to award grants ranging from £100 to £500 to community organisations and charities in Cheshire East, Greater Manchester and Chester and District.

With this latest handful of grants, the wealth management company has awarded over £21,000 in funds to community groups.

The scheme forms a part of the company’s wider charitable strategy, anchored by The Equilibrium Foundation – which has a current donation goal of raising £4 million by August 2028.

Grant applications from the Chester and District area can be submitted at https://www.eqllp.co.uk/the-foundation/chester-and-district-community-support-scheme.