Opinion: Solutions

How to deliver a cradle-to-career service in every community

Our new report shows the transformative potential of local ‘cradle-to-career’ partnerships and how school leaders can lead them to success – with support

Our new report shows the transformative potential of local ‘cradle-to-career’ partnerships and how school leaders can lead them to success – with support

24 Jan 2025, 5:00

There are probably few professionals more knowledgeable about what’s happening in communities around the country than headteachers. Our new research shows they are ideally placed to be community connectors to support children from cradle to career, and looks at how to maximise their impact in this role.

Schools are a near-universal touchpoint for families. They have unique potential to cultivate sustained relationships across many years at a depth that can ensure children are supported from birth through to adulthood.

The Reach Foundation’s Cradle-to-Career Partnership is a burgeoning network of schools working to address locally specific issues associated with poverty and deprivation. Among other things, they run community hubs that offer a range of services in one place, signpost families to support and convene community leaders and organisations.

As school leaders avow, this external focus on community is not instead of a focus on teaching and attainment outcomes. Rather, it recognises that parental and community involvement are crucial to those outcomes.

Our research shows that this ‘cradle-to-career’ work has the potential to help transform lives. With focused leadership, they can play a key role in helping to effectively join up services and systems around families’ needs, so they better respond to specific challenges on the ground.

Our new report ‘Heart of the Community’ shows how headteachers are well placed to build deep relationships with parents and carers as well as those providing health and social care. They have both authentic ‘frontline’ knowledge of challenges and the influence to bring people together to meet them.

Central to this work are the long-term relationships they build with families – especially parents. Relationships are understood as having transformational potential in individuals’ lives, supporting better mental and emotional health and empowering people to help themselves and others in the community.

Our report suggests eight key features of a successful cradle-to-career model:

Right time

This is about the school’s journey: when it has stability and a strong record on teaching and learning, and the work aligns with current school and trust priorities.

Trust buy-in

Having a supportive trust or local authority that is on board and can help provide support, structures and funding.

Civic mindset

Those involved believe that they can and should help change their community context.

Big-picture thinking

Those involved believe in the benefit of taking time out from the everyday to reflect on wider objectives beyond narrow school attainment measures.

Intentionality

Everyone is clear about the ‘why’ behind every action to ensure the work fits the school and community context.

Entrepreneurialism

Leaders are opportunistic and not afraid to ask for input and support, accepting that progress will be non-linear.

Right staff

There is staff buy-in and the right people lead the work. There is consistency of staffing and continuity plans for contingencies.

Showing impact

Different ways are found to demonstrate impact given the long-term and holistic nature of the endeavour, and ‘wins’ are used as proof of concept.

While doing this work is not easy, school leaders described the required mindset shift as empowering. In difficult times, school leaders can move from feeling like victims of circumstance to appreciating how their unique position can help nurture the energy, talents and opportunities within their communities.

Of course, school leaders will be concerned about how they can be expected to take on this additional work. They operate in a climate of squeezed school budgets and they are often already plugging gaps in the welfare system.

There is an added risk that if schools prove successful in developing their own cradle-to-career models without government support and alongside welfare cuts, future governments will continue to underfund schools and wider services.

School-led cradle-to-career work is not an alternative to better-funded public and third sector services. But it is a vital change to better address the complex, chronic issues associated with disadvantage like social isolation, which existing systems deal with poorly.

Together with better-funded public services, this could create a real difference to families’ lives and to children’s life chances.

Read the full report here

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