GT Scholars was founded by social entrepreneur Temi Kamson – a Maths teacher and University of Cambridge Alumni. Temi launched the first GT Scholars programme in 2013. At the time, she was approached by some young people living locally to her, asking for support with improving their grades. From her experience in teaching, she knew that most young people were ambitious and wanted to reach their full potential but they often had no idea how to get started. Passionate about social mobility and having come from a working-class background herself, Temi knew that the young people would need more than just tutoring if they wanted to achieve their academic and career aspirations.

We joined the Lloyds Bank School for Social Entrepreneurs Start Up Programme where we developed the skills, strengths and networks that we needed to tackle our goals. During this period, we attended courses that equipped us to start, scale and strengthen our organisation as a social enterprise, which allowed us to develop programmes and ideas that are effective, sustainable and impactful.

The Young Foundation Accelerator is an intensive four-month programme intended to propel and rapidly accelerate social enterprises through an effective combination of business support and social investment. The Young Foundation has a Social Innovation and Investment Team which is particularly interested in the fields of health, education and places that are focused on changing people’s lives for the better. Through the Accelerator programme, we were able to secure a second round of investment for GT Scholars. The accelerator programme also helped us further develop our theory of change, improve our marketing and branding strategies and improve our business model. This has helped us develop additional programmes that are sustainable and meet our mission of tackling social mobility through education.

Through the Lloyds Bank School for Social Entrepreneurs Trade Up Programme we received the support to make our organisation more sustainable and to create more impact. Together with a 14-day learning programme, we received a match trading grant, a support network of other social entrepreneurs at a similar stage to us, and a mentor to take our organisation to the next level.

One of our GT Scholars alumni, Michael Olorode, was featured in The Guardian’s spotlight on student finance. In the article he explained how he has funded his way through university without a loan. He explained the importance of GT Scholars in helping him work hard at school so that he ultimately got some of the best A-level grades in his class and how his mentors at GT Scholars instilled in him the importance of working hard for what he wants in life.