WHO WE ARE
Thomas’s Foundation, a Charitable Incorporated Organisation established in 2018, is the charitable arm of Thomas’s London Day Schools.
Vision & Mission
Thomas’s Foundation is driven by the belief and vision that every child deserves an enriching education.
Thomas's Foundation delivers its vision through three core programmes:
These core programmes provide educational opportunities for children in the local communities of Thomas’s London Day Schools located in Battersea, Clapham, Fulham and Kensington and, overseas, in the remote hill villages of rural Nepal.
Our Values
Kindness lies at the heart of Thomas’s Foundation, reflecting the values of Thomas’s London Day Schools and educating pupils about the importance of giving back to the community, at a local and global level.
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Scholarship
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Perseverance
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Integrity
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Respect
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Confidence
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Leadership
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Givers, not takers
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Kindness
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Courtesy
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Compassion
Thomas's Foundation is committed to operating in a way which is:
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Needs Driven - meeting the specific needs of its beneficiaries
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Collaborative - working with
educational partners in the UK and Nepal who have experience of need at “grass-roots” level.
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High Impact - with clear
beneficial outcomes
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Cost Effective - with transparent processes and clear accountability
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Sustainable - empowering people to help themselves
OUR TRUSTEES
DOMINIC GRIFFITHS
Chair
CHRIS BENSON
Trustee
AMANDA CONSTANCE
Trustee
BUNMI RICHARDS
Trustee
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BEN THOMAS
Trustee
JANE VENTERS
Trustee
TRUSTEE BIOGRAPHIES
DOMINIC GRIFFITHS, Chair
Dominic is Managing Partner of Mayer Brown London and on the firm’s Global Management Committee. Mayer Brown is an international law firm and Dominic’s practice concentrates on high value cross-border structured finance and lending transactions for banks and private credit funds as well as multi-national companies.
For ten years prior to his current appointment he was co-global head of the Banking and Finance Group. Dominic has also been a champion of mental health and well-being in his profession and across the City and is dedicated to supporting young people in their entrance to Law and through the early years of their career.
He is also the Chair of The Unicorn Children’s Theatre, a member of the Development Board of the UK’s largest children’s mental health charity Place2Be and is on the Advisory Board of One Million Mentors (a youth mentoring charity).
CHRIS BENSON, Trustee
Chris is a Director of Advent International, a global private equity firm. At Advent Chris invests in, and helps grow, a variety of businesses across the financial and business services sectors.
His focus with the Thomas’s Foundation is the expansion of the Bursaries programme. Chris is also a Trustee of the British Friends of Harvard Business School, which provides scholarships for British students to study at Harvard University; was formerly a Trustee of Floreat Education, which set up primary schools in West London; and of Technoserve, a global NGO which promotes business solutions to poverty in the developing world.
Chris has an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Fulbright Scholar, and an MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University. Chris is married to Gabriela, and has a daughter and a son.
AMANDA CONSTANCE, Trustee
Amanda is communications specialist with more than 25 years’ experience as a journalist working across news, lifestyle, and education. She built a successful brand of magazines called Absolutely Education and British Education and has been Head of Media at the Girls’ Day School Trust and Director of Communications at Dukes Education. She now runs her own PR and communications consultancy for the education sector. Amanda is married with three children and lives in London.
BUNMI RICHARDS, Trustee
Bunmi Is married with two children. She is the headteacher of an award-winning, community primary school in Battersea. It is the first school in the UK to be awarded the prestigious LabelfrancEducation, granted to schools outside France offering a bilingual curriculum of extremely high quality.
Bunmi has 17 years of headship experience. She is the headteacher representative on the Wandsworth Virtual School Management Board which has the responsibility of ensuring that some of the most vulnerable children reach their full potential.
BEN THOMAS, Trustee
Ben is Principal and CEO of Thomas’s London Day Schools. He was educated at Eton College, Durham University and the UCL Institute of Education, London, where he gained a Master’s degree in Education.
Ben is the younger son of David and Joanna Thomas, who founded Thomas's in the 1970s. He has been a Principal of the group since 1995 and was Headmaster of Thomas's Kensington from 1995 and Thomas’s Battersea from 1999 to 2017. He is married to Katie. They have three children, a son and two daughters.
JANE VENTERS, Trustee
Jane’s career has been varied from Assistant to Delia Smith and Deputy Food Editor of The Sainsbury’s Magazine to running her own Interior Design business. Having children has altered her focus, and children and education are now her main interests.
She helped raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for the Thomas’s Foundation when she was Head of the PTA at Thomas’s Battersea. Jane has volunteered with the TF Pathway programme and will now lead the programme as it enters its new phase. Jane continues to read with children at both Thomas’s Battersea and Falconbrook Primary School through the Thomas’s volunteer reader programme. Her focus as a trustee will be to act as a main point of liaison for the prep school PTAs to ensure fundraising remains focused and relevant. Jane is married to Ewan and they have two teenage daughters.