A starting point
Cradle to career in your place
A short walk through how we see a place: what is happening to children now, what could be different, and where you might start.
Where are you looking from?
It changes the scale of the question, not the question itself.
What is happening now
None of this starts in the classroom
The gap is already there at five, and it widens at every stage. Underneath it runs poverty, housing, unmet need, mental health and absence, none of which begins at a school gate.
The disadvantage gap, in months of learning. Education Policy Institute, 2026.
Now look at your own place
These are national figures. Our mapping tool shows the same picture for any local authority in England, across all five outcomes, using published data. It takes a few minutes and it is the quickest way to find out which of the five outcomes you can already see clearly and which are dark.
Open the cradle-to-career mapping toolWhat could be different
The cradle-to-career opportunity
A childhood is one continuous journey. Our institutions are not, which is why the joins matter as much as the phases. Nothing here requires new buildings or a new service. It requires the people already around a child to work as though they share one.
In a child’s life for a season
In a child’s life throughout
The gold line is one child’s journey through time, nought to nineteen, with the ages marked along it. The buildings it passes hold a child for a season. The homes and the people around them are there the whole way. Hover or tap anyone around the child to bring them forward.
Build support that is
Which drives engagement
Children, families, employers and the wider community engage more. You can see it in attendance, enrichment, family engagement and take-up of services.
Which drives the five outcomes
- Achieve well academically
- Be safe and well-supported
- Be healthy, physically, mentally and emotionally
- Build strong relationships and social networks
- Develop a range of skills
Where would you start
Eight prompts, four phases
Two questions for each phase of childhood. The first asks what the phase is actually like for a child and family where you are. The second asks what success would look like, which is the harder one, because most of us reach for the measure we already have.
Hold all five outcomes in mind as you answer the second question
Answer the ones you have a view on and leave the rest. If you have not already, it is worth pulling your own figures from the mapping tool first, so you are answering against what is true in your place rather than what you assume.
Early years
0 to 5
What it is like here
Picture a family in your place expecting a baby, and the five years that follow. What do they meet along the way, and what are they left to work out on their own?
What success would look like
By the time a child here starts school, what would you want to be true of them and their family, beyond anything a Reception teacher can record? Answer across all five outcomes.
Primary
5 to 11
What it is like here
What is primary like here, in and out of the classroom? Think about the hours after three o’clock and the weekends as much as the lessons.
What success would look like
If a child here is thriving at eleven, what would you actually see? Push past reading, writing and maths and name what else would have to be true.
Secondary
11 to 16
What it is like here
What is it like to be fourteen in your place? Where do young people go, who do they trust, and who notices when they stop turning up?
What success would look like
Beyond a grade 4 in English and maths, what would tell you a young person here is doing well at sixteen? Try to answer against all five outcomes.
Post-16
16 to 18+
What it is like here
What happens to a young person here after Year 11? Who holds the relationship once they are nobody’s cohort and nobody’s number?
What success would look like
A meaningful first destination is more than a place on a course. What else would have to be true before you would call it a good outcome?
If you did one thing, where would it be?
Eight moments where a child moves from one set of adults to the next. Pick the one you would start with.
Why that one
Your notes
What you said
This stays on your device. Save it as a PDF to keep it, or to bring to a conversation.
Talk it through with Leonie
If any of this is live for you, the most useful next step is a conversation. Leonie Ratty leads our Cradle-to-Career Catalyst programme. She will walk through what you have written, what it would take in your place, and whether this work is a fit.
Or email her at leonie.ratty@reachfoundation.uk.
Choose Save as PDF as the destination when the print dialogue opens.
The Reach Foundation. Figures are the most recent published at the time of writing and are listed with their sources above.