Changing the odds: Bligh
-
The partners whose work you'll see here are part of the first cohort of our Cradle-to-Career Accelerator.
The C2C Accelerator is our growth fund for partners showing the most promise in building coherent, place-based support around children. Each place selected joins a bespoke three-year programme, with investment and dedicated support from our cradle-to-career specialists, to accelerate the model it is already building in its own community. The work draws on what we learned in Feltham, and on what this growing community of partners is learning from one another.
We commissioned Postcode Films to make these short films in the communities where that work actually happens. We didn't want slick promotional pieces, and we didn't want stories of heroes. We wanted to bring the work home: to show what cradle to career looks like up close, in real places, as ordinary and curious people do the patient, often unglamorous work of changing the odds for children and families.
They are also a way of honouring these partners, and of learning in public, so that others weighing up this work can see what it really involves.
Great schools are necessary but not sufficient, and these films are about the rest of the answer: the people of a place choosing to close the gaps children fall through, together.
The nursery and reception teachers saw what was coming. Some children were arriving at school ready, but increasing numbers were not.
The support that might have helped in the child’s earliest years was thin, scattered, and easy to miss. So they started running groups for local families. On a shoestring budget, at first, because the need was there and nobody else was filling it.
This film is set in Bligh in Medway. It isn't the story of one heroic school, it's about a trust (Maritime Academy Trust) that decided every one of its primary schools should be a proper anchor in their respective neighbourhoods.
Quiet, unglamorous, patient work. The kind that rarely makes the headlines, but changes the odds for children rather than expecting a few to beat them.
Seven minutes. Make yourself a cup of tea first.
If you’d like to learn more about our Cradle-to-Career Partnership, please get in touch.
