Footprints Conductive Education Centre Ltd is a charity now based in Clifton, Nottingham and has been helping children living with disabilities and their families across the East Midlands since 1978. We hope you enjoy reading the story of our charity!
The transformation of our new site in Clifton continues and the start of the year marks the site of works for the first phase. Our new charity home, the first time in our long history that we will be in control of our own site, brings many incredible opportunities for the children and families we provide our transformative services to, and the organisations we're connected with.
In March, working in partnership with Notts County Foundation and Epic Partners, we launched We Belong. Providing after school sessions for children and young people aged 5-18 years who live with disabilities, this is an inclusive multi sports programme.
In June 2025, we welcomed families to our new Footprints Centre for the first time and started to run our Conductive Education and Speech and Communcation sessions from there.
And towards the end of the year, our Community Coffee Bar Pulp & Prints, run in collaboration with fellow Nottingham charity Pulp Friction, opened to our Footprints Team and Families. In early 2026 the coffee bar will be opened to the public and community around us.
2024 marked a new and exciting era for Footprints. In June 2024 we announced the relocation to our new site in Clifton, which will become the new Footprints Centre, home of Conductive Education and Community Hub. Our own site, with more flexible and accessible space, enabling us to provide more services and support to children and families living with disabilities.
We also worked in partnership with fellow Nottingham charity, Epic Partners, to launch Epic Bounce, an after school service for children aged 4-11 years who live with disabilities.
We have launced our brand new website and are working with a number of new Charity Partners, have developed our Ambassador Team and diversified our fundraising activities, to include sky diving, Tough Mudder and a night walk.
We have re introduced hydrotherapy swimming sessions for our pre school children, are now offering sleep support and workshops, and hold regular social and informative coffee events for our Footprints Families.
A new era for Footprints begins and in August we welcomed Stephen Frew as our Business and Charity Manger. The Footprints Team is focused on continuing to transform our families and childrens’ lives and delivering our six key principles to ensure we achieve this.
17 July 2022 marked a very special date for us – our 20-year anniversary of becoming a charity. We held a big celebration for our families and supporters and reflected on our shared history. Celebrating with all the families we have supported and seen grow, we also looked to our exciting future where we will continue to help our children thrive and achieve their potential.
Like many other businesses and charities, these years were dominated by the Covid pandemic. The lockdowns meant we had to close our face to face classroom sessions and find alternative ways to support our children and families. We ensured our crucial service continued and utilised Zoom for our sessions. Our families told us how grateful they were that we were one of the few services to keep going. As soon as we were able to safely, we reopened our classroom sessions, with strict covid measures in place to keep everyone safe.
We were also delighted to welcome some new trustees during this time - meet our team!
We were thrilled that Richard Whitehead MBE became our new Charity Patron. We also received the exciting news that BBC Children in Need had awarded us another three-year grant.
We changed our name from School For Parents to Footprints Conductive Education Centre.
In July, after three years of being part of KIDS, School for Parents is now wholly independent.
We celebrated our 10th anniversary of being an independently registered charity on 17 July. We reviewed and increased our services to include supporting older children with communication difficulties, supporting the transition to school and providing outreach for families.
School for Parents moves to its new premises at the Iona School on Sneinton Dale, Nottingham. We also join KIDS – the national charity that supports children with disabilities. We’re now known simply as School for Parents.
We begin a hunt for a new home, as we are no longer able to be at Scope’s premises. At the same time, we start planning our rebranding, which will eventually include a new name for the charity.
Thanks to the hard work, commitment and determination of our parent trustees, Rutland House School for Parents continues to develop its educational and support services. Jane Barton deserves special recognition for the enormous contribution that her fundraising efforts and support make over these years.
We became an independent charity, as due to financial pressures and organisational changes, Scope could no longer fund our services. Some of the parents form a Board of Trustees, so Rutland House School for Parents can continue as an independently funded and independent charity. We immediately started fundraising and have a contract with Scope for the use of our premises at Elm Bank.
There are now 40 Schools for Parents helping hundreds of children and their families across the UK.
Our conductor teachers, physiotherapists and nursery nurses continue to develop our services. We gain an international reputation for our work with children with disabilities and their families, and support children all over the world. As a result, some parents set up Schools for Parents, sending professionals to train with us and starting schools in Greece, South Africa and Pakistan. At the same time, a network is established in the UK. Rutland House and Ingfield Manor Schools are the two training centres for this new network.
The Nursery is re-named Rutland House School for Parents. By now, the services and support we offer are based on Conductive Education. Scope, still our host organisation, agrees a contract with the Petö Institute in Hungary to train the first UK based conductor teachers.
The new nursery opens and we now operate five days a week, with 60 families attending our various sessions.
We renovate the coach house in the grounds of Rutland House, creating a new and purpose-built nursery.
A small group of parents with very young children, with varying forms of motor disorder, appear on the school’s doorstep. They ask if we can help them and the school’s physiotherapist and head-teacher start a weekly afternoon meeting for these parents and their children. We become known as Rutland House Nursery and work under the Scope umbrella.
Rutland House School opens in Nottingham. Part of the Scope charity network, the school cares for older children and young adults with cerebral palsy.
