Ten years, one question: what does a child need to thrive?
We opened in Feltham in 2012. Everything since has been an attempt to answer that question—first across our neighbourhood, then across the country. This is how the story has unfolded.
It started with a school in Feltham.
In 2012, we helped set up Reach Academy Feltham—a small, all-through school for sixty children in each year group, from Reception to Year 13. We believed in the power of all-through education to build strong relationships and give a child's journey real coherence.
The school is run by Reach Schools, our sister organisation, and it's where everything we do began.
Reach Academy Feltham →
Then a second.
The community wanted more children to benefit from the same approach. But the human scale was part of what made the first school work—so rather than let it grow too big, a second school opened nearby: Reach Academy Hanworth Park. Today both are run by Reach Schools.
Reach Academy Hanworth Park →
We started building beyond the school gates.
We realised that for every child in Feltham to enjoy a life of choice and opportunity, a great school is necessary but not sufficient. So we set up the Reach Children's Hub—an integrated pipeline of cradle-to-career support around the schools.
Our community came together to lead the change.
Feltham wanted a way to improve the experience of growing up in Hounslow, together. So we began building collective impact—grounded in, and led by, our community.
We develop the capacity and confidence of community leaders, so the people who know a place best can shape how things are done in it.
We began building a national network.
Our ambition was never only Feltham. All the while, we were building a national network of locally connected leaders, ready to confront the biggest challenges facing their own communities.
We've made mistakes and learned an enormous amount. But the cradle-to-career approach has proven itself, and we've developed approaches we've been able to share across the country.
We incubated ideas the whole sector could use.
Some of what we started outgrew us, which was always the hope. Oak National Academy, built in a fortnight to keep the country learning through lockdown. Languages for All, opening up language learning beyond the few. The Centre for the Children's Workforce, building a profession around the people who support children.
We start things, prove them, and let them travel.
We work wherever the thinking is boldest.
We set up and facilitate regional school-leadership programmes, led by the places they serve. We take on consultancy with some of the most forward-thinking education organisations in the country, and we participate in international networks.
Our people serve on governing and trust boards as non-executive directors, and our work reaches into national policy. Wherever people are serious about changing children's odds, we try to be useful.
The work reaches communities across England.
Today we develop leaders, cultivate the wider children's workforce, strengthen places, and make the national case for organising support around children—from one neighbourhood to many.
See where we work →What we do has changed a hundred times. Why we do it, not once.
Our work responds to the needs of our partners and the challenges within the sector. But the purpose underneath it—that every child can enjoy a life of choice and opportunity—has held steady for over ten years.
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