Gifted children’s organisation Potential Plus UK has become the fifth charity to join Coram since June last year.

The charity supports children with high learning potential and from this week will transfer all its programmes and services to Coram, which is the UK’s oldest children’s charity having launched in 1739.

Potential Plus launched during the 1960s as the National Association for Gifted Children and offers specialist assessments to children, guidance for professionals and advocacy support for parents.

“We are delighted that Coram is welcoming our community into its family, securing and improving upon this specialist support for the future and helping it reach even more children and families,” said Potential Plus UK chief executive Olivia Smith.

Potential Plus’s spending has outstripped its income in four of the last five financial years. In the 12 months to April last year it earned £312,730 but spent £440,570, according to the charities register.

Coram chief executive Carol Homden added: “We are delighted that Coram is welcoming our community into its family, securing and improving upon this specialist support for the future and helping it reach even more children and families.”

The charity is the fifth to be absorbed into the Coram group in just over a year.

Family support charity Family Lives joined Coram in April this year to become Coram Family Lives.

In January anti-bullying charity Kidscape transferred its activities to Coram to operate as Coram Kidscape.

Last August Leap Confronting Conflict, the specialist youth charity offering support on managing conflict, joined Coram.

Also last year, the Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years (PACEY), which supports childminders and other home-based carers, transferred to Coram to be known as Coram PACEY

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